Experts: Pay raises don’t solve staff shortages

The Economic Council’s chairmen, often referred to as ‘wise men,’ state there’s little difference in the public sector wage increases settled in recent collective bargaining, which may impair recruitment in staff-deficient areas like healthcare and elderly care. The new productivity report highlights uniformly similar wage hikes among public employees, which is at odds with the government’s announcement that staffing shortages will worsen. Normally, market mechanisms would adjust pay based on demand, but the council concludes that current public sector agreements fail to optimally distribute labor, resulting in less efficient public services. Despite a tripartite agreement for notable public sector pay raises, the wise men deem the measures modest and unlikely to significantly attract more people to professions like nursing assistants or nurses.