A month into the first civil service pay cut in five years, the government has launched the annual pay adjustment exercise, which could bring a pay rise as early as April.
The move means that a pay cut of 5.38 per cent for 18,200 civil servants may last for just three months if a pay trend survey on private companies shows pay rises were given in the private sector over the past year.
The Pay Trend Survey Committee endorsed the research method last Tuesday and will soon send out letters to more than 100 companies for their pay adjustments between April last year and March this year. The figures form the basis for the annual adjustment.
With all signs pointing to a continued economic recovery, civil service unionists hope they will receive a 2 to 3 per cent pay rise.
A regional survey by consultants Hewitt Associates forecast that Hong Kong firms would give their staff an average 3 per cent pay rise this year, while a survey by the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management estimated the average pay rise level at 2 per cent.
'We don't have high expectations. The market improved a bit in the fourth quarter of last year, but the economy was still gloomy in the first two quarters ... Perhaps the pay trend survey will find a positive number [of salary adjustments in the private sector], but I think it wouldn't be a high one, probably 2 to 3 per cent,' said Leung Chau-ting, chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Civil Service Unions.
