Home Minister analyzes wage policy reform

The Minister of Home Affairs said that implementing the wage reform policy requires a great effort from all levels and sectors. Otherwise, there would be no resources for wage reform.

This session, the National Assembly officially approved the salary reform policy. This is the highlight and mark of this session of the National Assembly, both historical and topical, creating a joyful and exciting mood for the staff, civil servants, public employees and society.

“We have made efforts, in the context of the country's difficulties, to be proactive, flexible, and creative, especially in grasping the situation, solving immediate problems, and considering long-term strategies,” Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra affirmed.

The Minister analyzed three highlights, the first of which is the effort to create resources for salary reform. According to her, since the issuance of Resolution 27-NQ/TW in 2018 on salary policy reform for cadres, civil servants, public employees, armed forces and employees in enterprises until now, we have continuously encountered difficulties due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the consequences of the double impact from the world and domestic situation. The economy is difficult, but we are still determined to "tighten our belts" to have enough resources for salary reform, as the Prime Minister reported that there are 560 trillion VND to serve salary reform until 2026. This is a great effort of the entire political system.

The second highlight is the effort to reorganize the apparatus and streamline the payroll. This is the revolution in payroll streamlining ever. From there, it creates important resources to serve salary reform.

The third highlight is to focus on perfecting the civil service institutional system, from amending laws and resolutions of the National Assembly to issuing decrees to restructure and rebuild the civil service to suit the requirements of the new situation.

“Salary reform not only improves the lives of officials, civil servants, public employees, workers and their families, but also importantly improves labor productivity and national competitiveness. Salary reform is the driving force for economic growth. Because when salaries are raised, it will affect supply and demand,” said Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra.

At the same time, the Minister said that salary reform also achieves another goal, which is to restructure, rearrange and improve the quality of the staff, civil servants and public employees in a streamlined, effective and efficient manner, thereby responding to the requirements of salary reform.

Referring to the issue of salary reform, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that this is a completely breakthrough thinking, in line with the current world trend, in line with our current socialist-oriented market economy. Building a salary system based on job positions and management titles is a completely new issue. The current salary coefficient-based salary table has existed since 2004. Through 4 salary reforms, there has never been a reform as synchronous, comprehensive, and fundamental as this time. This is a new salary policy that is very progressive, fair, truly harmonious, and reasonable.

This time, the salary policy reform is restructured to calculate the basic salary rate, allowance rate and eliminate special salary policy mechanisms, leaving only the basic salary table, allowances and supplementing 10% of the basic salary for the heads of agencies and units to implement the goal of rewarding cadres, civil servants and public employees who have excellently completed their assigned tasks. These issues are very new, in line with the trend of fairness and progress.

However, there will be 36 units in some sectors that will no longer enjoy the special salary policy. If the salary table is built horizontally, some agencies may have their salaries reduced by 50%. According to the spirit of Resolution 27, agencies with special salary tables will be reserved (no increase). This is to aim for fairness with salary earners.

The Minister said that resources are being prepared to reform the new salary system from July 1, 2024, and after 2024, it will continue to increase by 7% to compensate for inflation and increase GDP, and ensure it until 2026. After 2026, if efforts are not made, it will be difficult to continue.

Therefore, in order to have a source to implement a sustainable wage reform policy and ensure annual growth, in the coming time, we need to focus on a number of key tasks. The top priority is to create sustainable financial resources. How to collect the budget and save on expenditures to ensure there is a source for wages, not just worry about this period. Because the resources to pay wages for this period have been accumulated from 2018 to present. From 2026 onwards, if we do not take into account increased revenue and saved expenditures, it will be very difficult to continue paying wages according to the new wage policy.

In addition, it is necessary to pay attention to propaganda to raise awareness, for example, with 36 agencies enjoying special salary policies in the future, they will only receive the current salary, no increase. The salary increase process will have a phase of transferring the old salary to the new salary according to the job position, it cannot be synchronized immediately and there will be problems arising.

“What we expect most when reforming salaries is that the Education and Health sectors will achieve the goal of increasing their salaries. At that time, society will be excited, civil servants, especially teachers and doctors, will be excited,” the Minister of Home Affairs shared.

In addition, Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra emphasized an issue that "cannot be done otherwise, which is to continue to arrange the apparatus, streamline the payroll to reduce the number of people receiving salaries from the state budget". According to her, the number of civil servants may be difficult to streamline because it has now been greatly reduced, there will be a better mechanism to reduce the number of officials receiving state salaries, to have more resources to implement salary reform.