Opinion | Why Hong Kong must persevere with reforming civil servants’ pay
The pay scales, which include automatic annual increments, are a misalignment between compensation and output that undermines efficiency

Improving efficiency has become a critical priority for governments worldwide, especially given rising financial pressures. In the United States, gross federal debt had surged to US$35.5 trillion by the end of last year, and servicing it accounts for 16 per cent of federal spending.
Hong Kong’s civil service pay structure, modelled after the British system, was established to provide guaranteed security for low-paying public-sector jobs and attract talent. This formula-driven pay scale functioned during the city’s economic boom from the 1970s to the 1990s, a period when affordability was not a concern.
But, by the early 2000s, its relevance had diminished. In 2001, then-secretary for the civil service Joseph Wong Wing-ping noted a growing misalignment between civil service pay and private-sector benchmarks, and the outdated and inflexible nature of the adjustment mechanism, which no longer satisfied the demands of a modern and competitive economy.