Money
Average salary goes up 14.4pc
Average salary of those working in the country jumped 14.4 percent in October, as paycheques of white-collar employees fattened after the government raised salaries of those in its payroll.Average salary of those working in the country jumped 14.4 percent in October, as paycheques of white-collar employees fattened after the government raised salaries of those in its payroll.
White-collar employees took home 18.5 percent more in salary in October than in the same month a year ago, shows the latest National Salary and Wage Rate Index of the Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB), the central bank.
This growth comes on the back of 25 percent salary increment offered by the government to civil servants this fiscal year. In October last year, average salary of white-collar workers had gone up by marginal 0.8 percent.
With this, the growth rate in salaries of white-collar employees has surpassed that of blue-collar workers after at least a year.
In the last fiscal year, average salary of white-collar employees had gone up by 0.8 percent, as against average wage hike of 7 percent reported by blue-collar workers. A year before that, average salary hike of white-collar employees-which stood at 8.5 percent-had marginally beaten average wage hike of 8.4 percent of blue-collar workers. “Over the years wages of [blue-collar] workers have been going up, as many of them have left the country to work in Malaysia or the Gulf, creating a labour shortage of sorts in the country,” said Nara Bahadur Thapa, chief of the Research Department at the NRB.
Although the exact number of blue-collar workers in the country is not known, they dominate the labour market, as their salaries command a weight of 73 percent in the National Salary and Wage Rate Index.
Among blue-collar workers, average wage of carpenters shot up by 21.1 percent in October, which is more than average salary hike of white-collar workers. Next in the line to witness a surge in payscale in October were masons, whose average wage jumped 17.1 percent.
Among others, average wage of agricultural labourers went up by 13.5 percent in October, while industrial labourers saw 12.3 percent hike in their average wage in that month.
Wage increments of these workers make raise given to those working in banks and financial institutions look miniscule, as their average salary increased by mere 3.4 percent in October. However, data of those working in other private institutions are not available.
Among other white-collar workers, those working in education sector took home 20.7 percent more in salary in October than in the same month a year ago.