According to Lebanon’s Ministry of Finance (MoF), personnel costs slightly increased annually 1% to reach $5.45B by October 2020. This increase was driven by rise of “Transfer to public institution”, “Retirement compensations” and “Salaries, wages and social benefits” by 9.2%, 6.8% and 2.8% respectively, compared to Jan-Oct 2019. Meanwhile, “end of service indemnities” was the only component to register a decrease of 38.7%, reaching a total of $256M by the end of October 2020.
In details, payments for the sub-account of “salaries, wages, and related benefits” (constituting 61.67% of the total personnel costs) rose by 2.76% year-on-year (y-o-y) to reach $3.36B by October 2020. This rise was mainly attributed to the y-o-y increase in “allowances and “basic salaries” for military personnel by 38% and 1.6% to reach $446.43M and $1.69B respectively, by October 2020. Furthermore, the “Government subscription and contributions to the public employees cooperative increased by 26.3% and reached $36.48M. However, “Education personnel” recorded an annual decrease of 13.4% to reach $624.21M.
Personnel costs represented 72.3% of primary expenditures in Jan-Oct 2020. Additionally, personnel costs represented 50.5% of total expenditures by October 2020, compared to 40.3% in October 2019, respectively. The main reason behind the increase in the share of personnel cost lies in a lower expenditure base which dropped annually by 19.6% during Jan-Oct 2020, primarily as a result of low interest payments due to the default on foreign debt.
Personnel Cost Breakdown by January-October (in $B)
