Public workers' salaries "may increase by more than 10%"

Andreea Paul Vass, the advisor of the Prime Minister Emil Boc, stated for a private TV channel that the budget allocated for wages in the following year will be the same as that in 2010.

"The Prime Minister asserted that, on the one hand, a share of the wage cuts is about to be retrieved, because we are laying off civil servants this year and will go on with this effort next year too, and as a consequence we match the same public fund of salaries of 2010", Andreea Paul Vass declared for Realitatea TV.

This means that public servants' salaries may increase monthly because the government "is making the effort to keep spending on wages within the required limit for twelve months and not for five months only as in 2010".

"Cutting down salaries was carried out in five months. In 2011, by keeping the same public wages fund, it can be dispensed more flexibly each month".

"The effort made in five months is now made in twelve months, it means 10-11%" according to advisor Andreea Paul Vass's reckoning.

Strictly mathematically, salaries could rise by 12.5%, taking into account that the gross values reduction of public workers' salaries was 25%.

If this boost is applied, monthly salaries could rise too, but the annual revenue of each public worker in 2011 will be the same as that this year.

Salary rise could be higher if we take into account the cutting down of bonuses and the number of public workers that were or are about to be laid off.

According to statements of Prime Minister Emil Boc and the decisions adopted by the government, the number of lay-offs in the public sector should rise to 74,000 filled positions.

Translated by: Cristina Anamaria Maricescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University