Letters | Performance-based pay rises for Hong Kong civil servants will help end unfairness

Readers discuss possible reforms to how pay rises for civil servants are calculated and why the introduction of electric buses is not an unalloyed good

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Hong Kong civil servants head to work at the government offices in Tamar on May 18. Photo: Nora Tam

Published: 11:30am, 13 Jul 2022

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The Executive Council’s recent decision on a 2.5 per cent pay increase for government employees has sparked views on two extremes. While the business sector and general public have praised the decision as fair, most civil servant unions voiced their anger. Such divided opinions might reflect a necessity for the new government to rationalise the existing pay adjustment mechanism to bridge the gap between public impression and the actual needs of public officers.

To start with, the date-back review of pay adjustment hinders the welfare of civil servants. The present pay rise mechanism collects salary data from the previous year. The government does not trace back to and adjust last year’s salary and pay back the difference. Rather, it fixes the next year’s salary instead.

Consequently, there is a persistent delay in pay adjustments and government employees are not able to enjoy the fruits of the economy in time. Take last year as an example. The city’s economy revived with 6.4 per cent growth as the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic eased. In the same year, the public workforce led in many anti-epidemic relief measures to support community recovery.

Unfortunately, the date-back policy is easily influenced by the immediate economic context and political pressure. Because of the fifth wave of the pandemic in early 2022, the pay rise of civil servants was limited to 2.5 per cent instead of the band of 2 to 7 per cent that had been discussed. Public officers again miss out on being able to enjoy Hong Kong’s prosperity because of the date-back policy.

To mitigate the impact of this pre-existing problem, pay adjustment in the long run should be based on job performance rather than purely on previous year’s economic growth and inflation.

Take for example MTR’s practice of pay adjustment being determined by staff performance based on a five-tier grading system. Outstanding employees get the highest pay rise. Our government is the biggest shareholder of MTR, and it would be beneficial if the administration could apply MTR’s mechanism to its own practices.