Treasury issues instructions for an additional 0.5% increase in the salary of state officials

MADRID, 6 Oct. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The Ministry of Finance and Public Function has published this Friday a resolution in the Official State Gazette (BOE) in which it dictates the appropriate instructions to implement the salary increase of up to an additional 0.5% on the payroll of employees in the sector. state public, with retroactive effects from January 1.

In accordance with this resolution, this additional increase must be made effective in the payroll for the current month of October, with the amounts corresponding to the months of January to September 2023 being paid as arrears.

In order to facilitate the preparation of the payrolls of senior officials, management personnel and other personnel of the state public sector for whom the law directly authorizes the application of this additional increase, the Treasury has issued a series of common instructions that include in the aforementioned resolution of the BOE.

Thus, it establishes that this additional increase of 0.5% will be calculated on the salaries in force as of December 31, 2022, will take effect from January 1, 2023 and will be paid in the payroll for the month of October 2023, unless all the necessary formal elements are available or it cannot be carried out for technical reasons, in which case it will be paid in the first payroll where possible.

The arrears for the months of January to September 2023, corresponding to the 0.5% increase, will be paid in the same terms, that is, in the October payroll or in the first time possible.

With regard to official and statutory personnel of the state public sector, senior officials and managerial personnel, in the event that they have not changed their destination, the arrears corresponding to the increase of 0.5% will be settled ex officio by the ministry, agency or entity in which it is providing services.

If they have changed their destination within the state public sector, with or without a change in the legal nature of the service relationship, these arrears will be settled by the center that paid the remuneration, upon request of the interested party.

Those who have changed their destination to a different public administration and those who were not in active service or who had lost their status as public employees will also have to request payment of these arrears within the period between January 1 and the last day of the month prior to payment of arrears.

If the employee had died during that same period, the request may be made by his or her heirs.

The settlement of arrears will be carried out in the same terms and conditions indicated above to the workforce whose collective agreement establishes the way in which the increase provided for in the General State Budget Law must be applied and to the workforce not covered by the agreement.

For employees other than these two cases, the settlement of arrears will be carried out in the first payroll of the month following the completion of the procedures required in Law 31/2022, of December 23, on the General State Budgets for the year. 2023.

The amounts of the remunerations for the year 2023 once the additional increase of 0.5% has been applied will be available on the Budget Administration portal, as stated in the resolution.

Although the instructions of this resolution concern public employees in the state public sector, this additional increase will also be received by the staff of the autonomous communities and local corporations, in total around 3.5 million public employees.

The salary increase, which will cost 791 million euros in total, will mean an average increase in the annual payroll of public employees of 180 euros, according to Treasury calculations.

This additional increase up to a maximum of 0.5% responds to the agreement signed by the Government with CCOO and UGT that linked this salary increase to the evolution of the estimated annual variation rate of the Harmonized Consumer Price Index (IPCA) for September, which stood at 3.2%.

Said agreement with the unions established that the payrolls of public employees would increase in 2023 by a fixed 2.5%, with the possibility of two variable increases, of 0.5% each.

The first would apply if the IPCA for 2022 and 2023 - until September, according to the advance data - exceeded 6% and the second variable of 0.5% would operate if the nominal GDP in 2023 exceeded that forecast by the Government (2 ,1%).

The first variable increase must be executed after the 2022 IPCA and the advanced IPCA until September of this year have exceeded 6% of the sum of the fixed remuneration increases for 2022 and 2023.