TIRANA, March 8 – More than a hundred thousand public administration employees have had their wages increased by an average of 10 percent starting March 2017, just three months ahead of next June’s general elections, following a three-year freeze.
The wage hikes range from 7 to 12 percent while the minimum wage for some 6,900 public sector workers is set to increase by 36 percent to 30,000 lek (€220).
The hike comes after pensions have also increased by a modest 3 percent for some 600,000 pensioners, both part of $100 million spending plan for 2017.
Finance Minister Arben Ahmetaj said the hike for some 164,000 public sector employees was a result of reforms the country has gone through in the past few years.
“Today’s decision is a direct expression of a new and inalienable reality the country has gone through as a result of tough but successful reforms undertaken in the past three and a half years, the consolidation of economic growth and support to the contribution the public administration had in the implementation of reforms,” said Ahmetaj.
While the wage hike could slightly boost current sluggish consumption, political and economic risks related to next June’s general elections and underperforming revenues related to them could put the country’s slowly recovering public finances back in trouble and undermine the target to bring back pubic debt to 60 percent of the GDP by 2020 compared to an almost record high of 71 percent currently.
