The Minister of Finance, Sinisa Mali, announced a significant increase in salaries in the public sector for this year, and every employee will be able to feel it in his wallet, in which he will have few dozens of euros more.
In an interview with Blic, Mali said that this is the fifth year in a row that salaries in the public sector have been increased.
“Now we are doing it in agreement with the IMF. This year, we will not have such a huge increase in salaries as was the case last year, but it will be significant, so that every employee will be able to feel it in their wallet, where they will have few dozens of euros more,” Mali said in the conversation.
He also announced that the exact percentages of drinking will be made public soon.
“On the other hand, we also increased the minimum price of labor by 6.6 percent, and pensions by 5.9 percent. The average salary is currently 511 euros, and in the spring of next year, it could reach 540 euros. The goal is for the average salary to be 900 euros by 2025, and the average pension to be 440 euros,” notes Mali.
To the criticism that the increases have no real basis, Mali answers that they have, thanks to good economic results.
“Last year, our GDP reached 45.9 billion euros and grew by 4.2 percent. With such a heated locomotive of economic development, we entered the beginning of this year and in the first quarter we had a growth of 5 percent, which was the best result in Europe. Then a pandemic happened and brought us to new economic challenges,” explained Mali and added:
“I think we have successfully overcome them, so we expect to be among the most successful economies in Europe at the end of the year – our official economic growth projection is -1 percent, but we believe we can be at zero. That opens up space for us to increase salaries, because our expectations are that next year’s GDP growth will be between five and six percent.”
Asked whether medics will receive higher wage growth than the rest of the public sector, the finance minister says the exact percentages of salary increases will be known soon.
“At the same time, it is clear that health care in the conditions of a pandemic is the most burdened part of public services everywhere in the world, even in our country. That is why we increased the salaries of medical workers by 10% at the very beginning of the pandemic. Working conditions are also important, so we have tried and we will continue to try to raise those standards to an even higher level through the renovation of health infrastructure and clinical centers,” concluded Mali, Nova reports.
