Cabinet to consider pay hike for low-ranking civil servants on Tuesday

The source said Parnpree, who is also the foreign minister, would seek the Cabinet’s green light for the pay hike in his capacity as the deputy prime minister supervising the Office of the Civil Service Commission (OCSC).

Earlier, Parnpree held a meeting of the OCSC, the National Economic and Social Development Council, the Finance Ministry and the Budget Bureau. The meeting endorsed the pay rise for junior government officials.

According to the source, the pay hike this year would be financed by the government’s central emergency fund because the fiscal 2024 budget bill has been drafted without budget allocation for the salary increase.

The salary increase will not be granted across the board but will be approved for low-ranking officials who have low salaries, whose pay has been outpaced by rising cost of living.

According to the OCSC, there are 3.199 million civil servants and state employees as of fiscal year 2022.

- 1,7756,812 government officials

- 1,423,294 other workforce (state employees, temporary employees, staff of public organisations, public health staff, state universities’ staff and state enterprise employees.)

According to the Comptroller-General’s Department, the department has been paying about 50 billion baht in salaries to 1.7 million state officials through 230 government agencies, excluding political office holders and employees of local administrations.

For October this year, the salaries paid by the department include:

- 44.372 billion baht to 1.29 million government officials

- 1.335 billion baht to 44,608 state employees

- 3.335 billion baht to 1.15 million retired government officials