ASSESSMENT OF THE COMPETITIVENESS OF WAGES IN THE PUBLIC SERVICE

Abstract

Wages in the civil service in Russia have traditionally been assessed as insufficiently competitive. At the same time, no systematic studies of this problem have been conducted. This article presents data on the level and structure of remuneration of civil servants, including by categories and groups of positions, assesses the level of its competitiveness in comparison with the civil service of the countries of the Organization for economic cooperation and development, and with wages in the economy as a whole. The results of the comparative analysis show that, taking into account the differences in gross domestic product per capita, the level of remuneration of Russian civil servants employed in Central offices, in general, corresponds to similar indicators for the countries of the Organization for economic cooperation and development. The competitiveness of labor remuneration in the civil service varies considerably depending on the place of employment and the category of positions. The greatest difficulty is represented by the substituting positions of categories ‘heads' and ‘experts' in territorial offices of Federal Executive authorities and in the Central offices of Federal departments. The paper provides recommendations on priority areas for improving the competitiveness of the remuneration of civil servants. The author substantiates the need to increase the share of permanent (guaranteed) wages in the overall structure of monetary remuneration of civil servants, as well as to ensure the transparency of the entire system.