THE Civil Service will cut pay of ministers and senior officials by up to 19 per cent next year, and the year-end payment for 2008 by one month in view of the slowdown in the global economy and in Singapore, the Public Service Division announced on Monday.
The year-end Annual Variable Component (AVC) will be reduced to 0.5 month, from one month last year. There will be no special Growth Bonus this year, unlike in 2007 when a special Growth Bonus of 0.5 month was pai).

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What a shame that the cut is across the board.

Wouldn't it it better if the cut in year end bonus was confined to to the superscales so that the rest can have some purchasing power to spend on the economy as encouraged by SM Goh?

Chin up civil service personnel, your all-in take home is still far superior to your counterparts in the private sector. You wouldn't want to trade places with them. The formula for adjustments is still loaded in your favour. It always will. Be thankful.

Why should civil servants suffer for the follies of others in the private sector?

Do you seriously think Goh CT (and our leaders) will practice what he preaches?
This is not your first day in Singapore, right?

The first sentence is your perception.

You are dead wrong on the second.

Monday blues?

Dear joecool51. Try and understand some basic economics and you will realise why your question is putz, Civil service are non-economic producers. The private sector is the sum of all the parts of the engine of production that generate wealth. It is the success or failure of the private sector that determines the economic health of the economy at any given time. The civil service is strictly not a part of that engine, although some hybridised civil service components like Temasek and NTUC try wearing both hats. Follies are found everywhere, even in the civil service except in the latter the preferred term is "bad decisions". The reason why the civil service pay 'moves' with the economic climate is because in S'pore, their pay is linked to the economic engine or private sector. That has worked very well for the civil service because by that formula, the Spore civil service pay is substantially higher than their counterparts in any other part of the world, even with the pay cuts. As a corollary, their foreign counterparts follow the conventional "unlinked" principle, and because they are already so low (by comparison) there is no room for reduction or pay cuts. If they are no longer affordable, they get sacked. Get It?

#8 gowherenow

Aiya, I know the linkage between the private sector and the public sector vis-a-vis the economy.

What I'm arguing for is for policy makers to think out of the box and beyond conventional wisdom.

If we continue with old modus operanti, for sure we'll go nowhere!

OUr mini-stars have already enjoyed > 50% increase in salary over the past 1 year, so this 11-19% reduction is nothing!!

Also, why ministerial salary should be pegged to only S'pore citizens' earnings. Why should the nebchmark include PRs and M'sians working here???????????? Is that the reason why PR status is granted freely to any foreigner?? Jim Rogers got his PR after staying less than 1 year in S'pore!!