Salaries of central government workers have been criticized for exceeding those of workers performing related duties in the private sector, which has undergone drastic restructuring in recent years. So, the National Personnel Authority, in its report to the Cabinet and the Diet, recommends no change in basic monthly pay and bonuses for national public servants in fiscal 2006.
The recommendation, which applies to about 300,000 desk workers, is expected to encourage a reduction in the salary-level gap between government and private-sector workers. As the government pushes financial reconstruction, though, it needs to find ways to keep up government workers' morale.
This year the authority changed the criteria on which it bases its recommendations. In the past, the authority had made its recommendations after surveying pay scales at companies employing at least 100 workers. Amid the struggles of financial reconstruction, however, private-sector representatives on the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy (chaired by the prime minister) thought that too much weight had been given to large companies in the survey. They proposed that the authority pay more attention to smaller companies.