South Africa\u2019s government raised its offer for salary increases to the country\u2019s public servants to 4.7%, well short of a demand by labour unions representing 1.3 million state workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The offer was increased from 3% after the government rejected civil servants’ initial demand for a 12% increase in the fiscal year that begins April 1, according to Frikkie de Bruin, general secretary of the Public Service Co-ordinating Bargaining Council. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Labour unions have lowered their demand to 7.5% after a facilitation process aimed at helping the two sides come to an agreement, he said by phone Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere\u2019s some progress that was made,\u201d De Bruin said. \u201cWe think that we are getting closer to a settlement range, which could be anything between 5.5% and 6%.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Restraining increases in public-servant wages is pivotal to government efforts to rein in the nation\u2019s debt, which is forecast to peak at 75.3% of gross domestic product in the 2025-26 fiscal year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Compensation accounts for almost a third of state expenditure, crowding out spending on other priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In its offer, the government proposed a multi-year agreement, along with increases to state workers\u2019 housing and danger allowances, according to De Bruin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jannie Oosthuizen, the labour-relations officer of the Public Servants Association of South Africa, said the offer was rejected by the majority of members. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The PSA represents more than 240,000 workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government\u2019s latest offer is above South Africa\u2019s inflation rate of 3.8% and near the central bank\u2019s estimate for average inflation of 4.6% this year.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n Price pressures are expected to cool further, with inflation expected to remain at the lower end of the Reserve Bank\u2019s 3% to 6% target range for the next three quarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, who has committed to reining in spending on state wages, will present his medium-term budget policy statement on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read: <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The government has raised its offer for salary increases to the country\u2019s public servants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":667287,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[1850,853],"class_list":["post-797740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bloomberg","tag-south-africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=797740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":797746,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/797740\/revisions\/797746"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=797740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=797740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=797740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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