The government could announce a salary increase of up to 3 percent for civil servants next week if officials and business representatives support the proposal, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said yesterday.
Wu has previously set two preconditions for deciding on a pay hike — tax revenues in the first quarter of this year and GDP growth in the fourth quarter of last year. He has also said that the decision would be contingent on whether businesses agreed to raise employee salaries.
Earlier yesterday, the Ministry of Finance said tax revenues in the first quarter reached NT$309.9 billion (US$10.65 billion), an increase of NT$14.6 billion, or 4.6 percent, from the same period last year.
Wu, who was attending a forum on corporate social responsibility, called on business leaders to consider a pay raise for their employees.
“Last year, listed companies earned a total of NT$1.5 trillion. With that, [businesses leaders] should treat their employees better,” Wu said.
He said the economic climate had become more favorable.
“The business income tax rate has been cut to 17 percent, the country’s economic growth rate [of 10.82 percent last year] was the fastest rate in 24 years and economic indicators point to an improving environment and increasing business efficiency,” he said.
Among the pay raise proposals under deliberation by the government, a hike of 3 percent has emerged as the likeliest scenario after taking into account the budget needed to cover the raise, public opinion and promoting social justice.
The Executive Yuan will present a supplementary budget for expenditure to the legislature for review after the proposal is finalized, Wu said, adding that the proposal would likely take effect in July.
The Central Personnel Administration said the government would have to earmark an additional NT$22 billion per year to cover a 3 percent pay increase for government employees.
However, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers voiced their opposition to the plan, saying the timing — coming as it does during election season — was not right and that it would add to the national debt.
“We haven’t budgeted for the [pay increase] this year,” DPP Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠) said. “If not from the national debt, where is this money going to come from?”
DPP lawmakers already made their position on the matter clear on Tuesday, after the latest government data showed that income disparity had reached new highs in 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available.
Calling the income disparity “the more pressing issue,” DPP lawmakers said the government needed to spend more money helping the most disadvantaged before giving civil servants a raise.
“By pushing for wage increases, the Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) administration is only giving benefits to a select few,” DPP Legislator Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) said. “The general public, meanwhile, is left out.”
The DPP caucus said that if the Executive Yuan was determined to push through the pay raise, the Council of Labor Affairs should also seek to raise the minimum wage, which stands at NT$17,880.
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