THE salaries of managers and professional employees grew by 10.4 per cent between June 1993 and June this year as measured by the Government's overall nominal salary index (A), according to official figures. The increase was largely in line with expectations. Salary index (B) - which measures changes in the average salary level only for those managerial and professional employees who remained in the same occupation and in the same company in 1993 and 1994 - rose by 14.7 over the same period. The rate of increase of the salary index (B) is usually higher than that of the salary index (A) because the salary index (A) includes the salaries of newly recruited and newly promoted employees who tend to be paid comparatively lower salaries than those already in the same rank. Among the managerial and professional employees covered in the survey, 66 per cent of them were entitled to profit-sharing bonus, 37 per cent to housing benefits of some kind and 82 per cent to provident/retirement fund or pension. It was also found that 88 per cent of them were entitled to a guaranteed year-end bonus. The salary rises contributed to the increase in the cost of services in the territory, which has been recording double-digit growth this year. In June the cost of services as measured by the Consumer Services Price Index (CSPI) registered double-digit growth.
