BL Premium reports that in the light of a new report released on Tuesday by Business Unity SA (Busa), big business has called for hard decisions to be made over SA’s public sector wage bill.  

The research by advisory firm Intellidex found that government wages were well above global norms, and have grown rapidly without any reference to increased productivity.  Busa warned that the government’s precarious fiscal position — in part driven by unaffordable levels of public servant pay — threatened the wider economy and the path towards a post-Covid-19 recovery.  The report, which used publicly available information from the National Treasury, and Stats SA, found that SA public sector wages were higher than the average of 46 countries.  The fastest increases were at the bottom of the staff distribution, countering the position held by unions that much of the rising state wage bill has gone towards bloated top and senior structures rather than front-line workers.  Intellidex also found that there was no evidence that the rapid wage increases “have been accompanied by or driven by increases in productivity gains”.  Given the contribution the wage bill has made to the government’s fiscal crisis “it is time for hard decisions, otherwise we are on a hiding to nothing”, Busa CEO Cas Coovadia warned.  The research is likely to draw the ire of public sector trade unions, who have already come out against plans in the recent medium-term budget policy statement for an effective pay freeze for public servants in coming years.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Lynley Donnelly at BusinessLive (paywall access only)
• Read too, State wage bill ‘a critical impediment to SA’s economic recovery’, says Busa, at Moneyweb

And also,

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