It is known that authorities are trying to defend their interests to the last. If we compare the situation to the crisis in 2009, then at those times they managed to keep falling wages for a longer period. Now is just for a month.
According to official statistics, public sector wage in January-May increased by nearly 36% if compared with the last year. From the beginning of the year, it was increased every month. However, in May wages fell by 7.7% in comparison to April.
The authorities are preparing people in advance, to that untill the end of the year the salary won’t be increased anymore. This was told to Belarusian journalists at a press conference by the president Alexander Lukashenko, and recently Prime Minister Mikhail Myasnikovich confirmed this information.
"Wages of public sector employees will not increase until the end of the year, but in accordance with the legislation, indexation will be implemented because of inflation, - said the head of the government. - This is a forced step."
Indexation does not meet the expectations of public sector employees. Tells the employee of the Minsk Factory of Worsted Igor Ostrovsky:
"The government promised us that the salary will rise to 150 thousand rubles. Naturally the employees greeted such news positively; nevertheless there were suspicions – Where will they get the money, if in the currency market there are such problems? According to the results they carried out indexation. And of the promised 150 thousand rubles I’ve got only 40 thousand rubles".
According to the economist Irina Urban, the budget has no funds for salary increases.
"Nominal salary of public sector employees currently stands at 1.3 million rubles. The authorities insist that they have fulfilled the plan of wages’ convergence of public sector employees with other workers in Belarus. The promised average salary - $ 500 - is out of the question now. An Increase will be small and only through indexation."
