It seemed that the times when politicians and officials thought that money for their maintenance "comes from a drawer" and private business "has nothing to do with it" were long gone. However, Prime Minister Evika Silina, with her recent statements, "brought us back to the past" and made us doubt whether the authorities understand who feeds the state administration.
The head of the government, responding to criticism from entrepreneurs regarding the authorities' unwillingness to cut budget expenses, stated that businesses, for some reason, do not want to save money themselves, but instead want to lure these state administration workers away by lowering salaries in the public sector.
This brilliant conclusion sparked a storm of outrage on social media. First, let’s try to understand what Ms. Silina actually meant. She probably wanted to say that if salaries in the state administration do not increase, but instead decrease, while salaries in the private sector continue to rise, then... officials will flee to the private sector.
Let’s start with the fact that salaries in the private sector are determined by competition in the labor market. Of course, other factors also play a role - inflation, tax policy, and the shortage of certain specialists... But the word "save" in relation to the private sector is completely inappropriate! How exactly should one save? On salaries? One might think that entrepreneurs only dream of raising their employees' salaries! They are forced to raise salaries by "external" circumstances.
In any case, entrepreneurs spend their earned money, not public funds, as Ms. Silina does. It is sad that the head of government needs to be explained such elementary things.
As for luring workers, there has been a completely paradoxical situation lately - due to the rapid growth of salaries in the public sector, people have not been leaving state administration for the private sector, but rather the opposite!
As for salaries in the private sector, Silina and Co. should actually be happy about the increase in official salaries, as this also increases tax revenues to the budget!
