The gross nominal average salary in the first quarter of his year rose by 17.2% compared with the corresponding period last year to 6,923 lei, the National Bureau of Statistics has said. Contacted by IPN, Iurie Morcotylo, economic expert of the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, said the salaries in the short term will continue to rise, but the rise in the medium and long term depends on the increase in labor productivity.
According to the expert, the productivity in Moldova over the past few years grew slower than the salaries and this is a challenge for employees in the medium and long term. If solutions for increasing productivity are not identified, the temporary or impressive rise in pays will be a short-term one and will return to the average tendency of 3-4% a year in real terms or of 5-6% in nominal terms.
The data of the National Bureau of Statistics show the average monthly salary in the budgetary sector rose by 26.5% to 6,842 lei, while in the economic sector by 13.9% to 6,954 de lei. Iurie Morcotylo said the pays started to grow at the start of 2018 and the phenomenon could be due to the economic growth, fiscal reform and salary reform initiated last yearend.
The economic expert noted the salaries in Moldova are low compared with the countries of the region and many people could say that they do not feel the rise in pays. “Many decide to find employment in Moldova or to go abroad and work after comparing the salaries in Moldova and the countries of the region. Even if the pays increased in the recent past, they are evidently smaller than in the countries of the region. That’s why many perceive the salaries as small,” he stated.
To his mind, the non-uniform incomes by categories of employees is a factor that diminishes the impact of the rise in salaries. Among the factors introduced together with the fiscal reform was the common income tax for private individuals that is no longer compared to the salary. The persons who had higher salaries only gained. “In Moldova, the number of those with smaller salaries is higher and the pay raises for these were evidently smaller than for those with salaries over the average,” stated the expert.
