Romania's government is set to adopt a law on base salaries in the public sector, but wages will not return to pre-austerity levels. The good news, according to Prime Minister Emil Boc, is that salaries in the public sector will increase by 15 per cent next year. In addition, the minimum wage is to be raised by Lei 70 to Lei 670 (Euro 160) per month. These are among the main provisions of a unitary wage law which the government plans to adopt via a confidence vote in Parliament next week.
But for many public sector workers, the news has been met with hesitation, as salaries will still be lower than in July this year when the centrist government decided to impose austerity measures under a €20 billion aid package led by the International Monetary Fund. As part of the agreement public wages were cut by 25 percent, thousands of state jobs were axed and VAT was increased by five percentage points to 24 per cent in a bid to cut the country's vast budget deficit.
“For sure any rise in the salaries is welcomed, but the money I get is not enough for a decent living,” Maria Petrescu, a public clerk, told Balkan Insight. In a related development, the government on Wednesday decided to continue layoffs in the public sector in 2011. Under the IMF agreement, Romania must bring down to 1.29 million the total number of civil servants in 2010, from the nearly 1.4 million workers employed by the state at the end of last year. Furthemore, Bucharest has pledged to cut the budget deficit to 4.4 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2011, from 6.8 per cent of GDP predicted for this year.
News source: BalkanInsight link: article
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