KATHMANDU, Sept 20: While prices saw a moderate rise the last Fiscal Year -- FY2016/17, average salary and wage rate posted a double-digit growth in the year, a recent central bank data shows.
In the previous years, inflation rate used to outpace rise in salary and wage rate in the previous fiscal years. But it was just opposite in the review year.
According to the Current Macroeconomic and Financial Situation of Nepal (Based on Annual Data of 2016/17) of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the annual average salary and wage rate surpassed the pace of inflation in the last fiscal year. In contrast to retail and wholesale prices, the annual average salary and wage rate index saw a growth of 14.4 percent in 2016/17. The retail inflation, as measured through consumer price index, moderated to 4.5 percent in the last fiscal year.
In the previous fiscal year 2015/16, inflation had skyrocketed to 9.9 percent while the average salary and wage rate index had increased by only 5.8 percent. Salary index climbed up by 18.7 percent, while wage rate index witnessed a growth of 13.4 percent in the last fiscal year.
According to officials of the NRB, the hike in pay scale of civil servants drove up the salary and wage rate index in the review year.
The salary growth had remained almost flat in the previous fiscal year 2015/16, while rise in the pay of staffers of bank and financial institutions (BFIs) and education sector had helped in pushing up the overall annual average salary index to 5.8 percent.
However, in the last fiscal year, the government’s decision to raise the pay scale of civil servants pushed up the salary of officers and non-officers of civil service by 24.2 percent, while salary growth of public corporations’ staff also remained high (20.8 percent). Staffers of the education sector, which has the highest weightage in the average salary and wage index, also seemed to have got a boost in their pay scale. The central bank’s data shows that the salary index of education group saw a growth of 20.7 percent in the last fiscal year. It had increased by mere 1.5 percent in the previous year.
Salary growth in private institutions remained flat. Employees of BFIs saw average salary growth of 8.1 percent. Army and police forces’ salary also shot up 23.6 percent in the last fiscal year, while there was not any change in the rate in the previous fiscal year.
Wage rate index surged 13.4 percent compared to 7 percent in the previous fiscal year, indicating that laborers received almost a double wage in the last fiscal year compared to what they pocketed in the previous fiscal year.
Wage of construction laborer whose rate went up highest by 14.6 percent in the last fiscal year. Such wage rate had increased by only 9.7 percent in the previous fiscal year.
Similarly, average wage rate of industrial laborer group and agricultural laborer group surged 13.1 percent and 13.9 percent, respectively, in the last fiscal year, compared to 8.3 percent and 3.6 percent of growth in 2015/16.
Carpenter’s average wage climbed up 17.4 percent, while masons saw their average wage rate grew by 15 percent in the last fiscal year.
Hike in civil sector salary drives up salary, wages indices
