Tbilisi: While presenting the draft budget for 2023, Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili spoke about the necessity of organizing salary policy in the public sector. The minister indicated a considerable rise of 10% in the salaries in the public sector.
“I was talking about this topic during the 2022 budget discussion, but I want to, once again, provide you with updated data. Until 2017, the median salary in the public sector was about 90 percent of the average salary in the private sector.
Wage growth has been significantly restrained since 2017 and, as a result, the median wage in the public sector is less than 80 percent of the private sector average wage, according to actual data for 2021. While we project a 10% base wage increase in 2022, wage growth in the private sector was much higher and, according to second-quarter data, the ratio between the public and private sector grew further.
The average salary in the public sector has dropped to less than 75 percent of the private sector. It is clear from all this that the salary policy needs legislative regulation, otherwise it will be impossible to retain qualified personnel in the public sector which will ultimately fail to perform public services and obligations The inefficient public sector will be negatively affected and will be formed, the Finance Minister noted.
He said, given the aforementioned, the 2023 budget envisages a 10% salary hike in the public sector (except soldiers and police, where we have a 20% salary hike).
As he noted, along with the budget, it presents changes in labour remuneration legislation that in the coming years salary growth in the public sector will be linked to private sector wage growth. In addition, the law stipulates that the average salary in the public sector must not exceed 90 percent of the average wage in the private sector.
