Chronic. In this country where the “people” are lucky to be in power, but not to have union representatives worthy of the name, it seems to be a simple message posted in December on the networks social that everything is gone. An official from the eastern city of Hangzhou openly complained: ” Listen to this. My annual salary is cut by about 25%. That’s 50,000 yuan less [6 900 euros]. How can I get out of this? »
Although it was quickly censored, the post provoked multiple reactions. Some Chinese initially deduced that this woman earned the tidy sum of 200,000 yuan per year, more than many private sector employees. But above all, tongues were loosened. Hangzhou, which has the privilege of hosting the head office of the number one e-commerce company Alibaba, is not a unique case. A policeman from Zhejiang would also have seen his salary cut by 25%. In this province, in Guangdong and in Jiangsu, various bonuses are said to have been skipped. Each time, there is talk of revenue cuts of 25% to 30%. In Shandong, it is the thirteenth month that has fallen by the wayside. Questioned by a provincial newspaper, the municipality of Suzhou, the “Chinese Venice”, admitted to carrying out a “adjustment” the salaries of civil servants. In Jiangxi, the city of Dexing is said to have ordered teachers to reimburse the bonuses received, ie 50% of their salary.
50 million people
The treatment of Chinese officials is very opaque. “Personnel departments within the government are, like organizational departments within the Party [communiste], among the most mysterious departments”, noted Alfred Wu, an academic from Singapore, in his book Governing Civil Service Pay in China, (Nias Press, untranslated), published in 2014, but which continues to be a reference. We do not even know the number of civil servants. We just know that they were 7.1 million (without teachers) at the end of 2015. A figure that does not take into account contract workers: around 50 million people. While part of the salary of civil servants is fixed and defined by Beijing, part – which can be just as important – is variable. Bonuses, accommodation or company car, access to specific hospitals or schools… Everything exists.
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