According to the latest data published by Lebanon’s Ministry of Finance (MoF), Personnel costs increased by a yearly 4%, to reach $4.40B by November 2016. In fact, the growth in public wages was mainly fueled by hiring additional security forces and raising payments made to education personnel.
In details, the sub-component “Salaries, wages, and social benefits” climbed by 3% year-on-year (y-o-y) to $2.9B. “Retirement salaries” also registered an annual uptick of 5%, while “End of service indemnities” and “Transfers to public institutions (of which payments to the Council for Development and Reconstruction- CDR)” recorded annual increases of 10% and 15%, respectively.
Overall, Personnel costs constituted 66% of Current primary expenditures by November 2016, compared to 67% and 57% in the same periods of 2016 and 2015, respectively. As such, the MoF explains that the slightly smaller share of Personnel costs out of the current primary expenditures is mainly linked to the latter’s larger base by Nov. 2016. In fact, these expenditures climbed by 4.6% y-o-y to $6.6B despite a $235.5M decline in Transfers made to EDL.
Breakdown of Salaries, Wages and Related Benefits during the period: Jan. – Nov. (in $B)
Basic Salaries | Total | |||
2015 | 2016 | 2015 | 2016 | |
Military Personnel | 1.32 | 1.38 | 1.76 | 1.8 |
Army | 0.84 | 0.89 | 1.13 | 1.15 |
Internal Security Forces | 0.36 | 0.38 | 0.47 | 0.49 |
General Security Forces | 0.08 | 0.09 | 0.12 | 0.12 |
State Security Forces | 0.02 | 0.02 | 0.03 | 0.03 |
Education Personnel | 0.54 | 0.57 | 0.59 | 0.62 |
Civilian Personnel | 0.2 | 0.2 | 0.27 | 0.27 |
Government contribution to employees cooperative | – | – | 0.15 | 0.15 |
Customs Salaries | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.02 | 0.02 |
Total | 2.06 | 2.15 | 2.8 | 2.9 |
Source: MoF