Proposed 2.5 per cent pay rise for Hong Kong civil servants pits top government advisers against unions
- Pay increment was endorsed by Chief Executive John Lee’s de facto cabinet on Tuesday
- But civil service unions say amount does not fairly reflect bigger workload workers faced during pandemic
Top advisers to Hong Kong’s leader have endorsed an across-the-board pay rise of 2.5 per cent for civil servants, rejecting a recommendation for increases as high as 7.26 per cent that was criticised by a leading business chamber and even senior politicians as out of step with the current economic climate.
But civil service unions on Tuesday decried the smaller suggested pay rise as unfair to the city’s 180,000 government employees whose workload had only increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, while lawmakers representing labour said the proposal amounted to a salary reduction, given rampant inflation.
Members of the Executive Council, the de facto cabinet of city leader John Lee Ka-chiu, agreed to support the 2.5 per cent rise as they held their first meeting following his inauguration on July 1.
The size of the increase had been hotly debated ever since a pay trend survey report suggested in May that civil servants in the lower, middle and upper salary bands receive bumps of 2.04 per cent, 4.55 per cent and 7.26 per cent, respectively. Previous leader Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor declined to state her views on the recommendation, opting instead to leave the decision up to her successor.
In announcing Exco’s decision, Secretary for the Civil Service Ingrid Yeung Ho Poi-yan pointed to economic uncertainties and an unpredictable geopolitical situation, as well as inflation elsewhere as major considerations for choosing a lower figure.
“Hong Kong’s economy has been facing a complex situation in the past year,” she told the press shortly after the high-level meeting finished. “Despite the strong rebound in 2021, the economy was severely hit in the first quarter of 2022 in the fifth wave of the epidemic.
“Although the business atmosphere and the employment situation have changed for the better in recent months, uncertainties remain in the overall economic situation.”