Hospital workers, paramedics and police who helped fight the pandemic are among the public sector workers who will receive a significant wage increase of up to 2.5 per cent in response to NSW\u2019s economic rebound from COVID-19.
\nThe financial \u2018thank you\u2019 will come into effect for all public sector workers due to be renewed from 1 July 2021.
\nThis change in the Government\u2019s wages policy is forecast to cost approximately $2.7 billion over the four-year forward estimates.
\nThis increase is significantly above current private sector wage growth, with most recent figures trending at 1.7 per cent for the sector that employs the vast majority of workers in NSW.
\nPremier Gladys Berejiklian said the Government\u2019s decision to boost pay came on the back of renewed confidence in the NSW economy following a year in which the country experienced its first recession in a generation severest post-war recession.
\n\u201cThe pandemic has meant making sacrifices and difficult decisions. This included wage restraint during the worst of the crisis,\u201d Ms Berejiklian said.
\n\u201cWe put all of our financial strength into protecting people, providing economic stimulus and boosting job-creating programs. The economy is back growing and we are now able to give a wage increase to government workers and their families.
\n\u201cI would like to thank all of our public servants for the work they have done in protecting the people of NSW over the past 18 months.\u201d
\nTreasurer Dominic Perrottet said while the NSW economy had rebounded, the impact of COVID-19 was still being felt.
\n\u201cWe have committed more than $29 billion in support and stimulus measures to support the economy during the pandemic,\u201d Mr Perrottet said.
\n\u201cLast year\u2019s reduction in pay rises was a tough decision, but everyone remembers the very confronting scenes from last year of people lined up outside Centrelink, by making that decision we were able to protect and boost jobs when needed to.\u201d
\nThe NSW Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) awarded most public servants a wage increase of 0.3 per cent in October last year in the midst of the pandemic.
\nAfter spiking to just over 7 per cent, the NSW unemployment rate now sits at 5.0 per cent with the Australian unemployment rate at 5.1 per cent.
\nMr Perrottet said NSW has regained more than the 270,000 jobs that had been lost during the pandemic and the recovery in the economy is well underway.
\n\u201cWe know there is still a lot more to do and we will continue to support people and businesses with a strong focus on productivity growth and reform,\u201d Mr Perrottet said.
\n\u201cWe weathered the storm and after a pandemic induced pause we can return to a fiscally responsible policy.\u201d
\nThe NSW Government\u2019s policy of up to 2.5 per cent remuneration increases was introduced in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hospital workers, paramedics and police who helped fight the pandemic are among the public sector workers who will receive a significant wage increase of up to 2.5 per cent in response to NSW\u2019s economic rebound from COVID-19. The financial \u2018thank you\u2019 will come into effect for all public sector workers due to be renewed from … Continue reading “Pay boost for public sector workers”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nswnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11841\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}