The Government approves the 2% increase in the salary of public employees in 2024 with almost six months of delay
The Government approved this Tuesday in the Council of Ministers a 2% increase in the salaries of almost three million public employees paid by the administration. In this way, the Executive unlocks a remuneration increase that had been agreed with the unions since 2022, but that had not yet been applied due to the absence of the General State Budgets (PGE) for 2024.
The salary increase It will be retroactive to January 1 of this year. This means that public employees will receive in their next payroll their usual salary with the increase already applied and, in addition, an amount that will compensate for the part corresponding to the increase not enjoyed in the previous five months.
The salary improvement affects the 1.47 million career civil servants in the state, regional and local public sectors. But it will also apply to the 640,000 employees under the labor force regime and to the rest of the workers at the service of administrations throughout the country.
This increase arrives half a year late and after the Government received repeated complaints from unions with representation in the public service. The Government’s initial idea was to implement the increase by including it as an amendment to the bill on anti-crisis measures due to the war in Ukraine and the Middle East approved last December. However, the rule is being processed as a bill and has been parked in a drawer in the Congress of Deputies for more than three months.
Consequently, The Executive has chosen to accelerate the process and has included the increase directly in the new decree that extends the measures so that it is effective as soon as the provision is published in the Official State Gazette (BOE). Which does not mean that the decree must be validated in the Cortes before 30 days have passed.
The increase approved this Tuesday was the last of the three that UGT and CCOO agreed with the Ministry of Finance in 2022. Since that year, and taking into account the increase approved this Tuesday, Public employees have benefited from salary increases that, accumulated and consolidated, total 8.8% (3.5% in 2022, 3.5% in 2023 and 2% in 2024). A figure that will rise to 9.2% when the last clause of the agreement is activated, which provides for an increase of an additional 0.5% in 2024 if the accumulated inflation between 2022 and 2024 exceeds that 8.8%, something that will happen except hecatomb.
Once the time frame of agreed salary increases has concluded, Government and unions have begun contacts to establish what the future remuneration will be. of public employees from 2025. A negotiation in which the unions want to include other demands, such as the recovery of purchasing power lost since 2010, the financing of Muface or the careers of staff.
