The Vice-President of the Regional Government stated that the update of the salary supplement of Regional Public Administration workers with lower salaries will correspond to a percentage increase five times higher than the inflation value registered last year.
This update, set at 2.35%, corresponds to five times the value of last year's inflation in the Region (0.47%), as defined in the Region's Budget for 2020.
The proposal, unanimously approved at the Legislative Assembly, not only presents the increase in the salary supplement but also defines the corresponding and proportional adjustment in accordance with the salary supplement brackets; therefore, no Regional Public Administration worker is harmed by the civil service salary increase that has occurred in the meantime.
"All brackets are updated exactly in an amount corresponding to the salary update in force for the Public Administration, so that workers can remain in the same brackets and fully benefit from the increase in the salary supplement without any change," Sérgio Ávila.
The Vice-President spoke, by video conference, at the Legislative Assembly. On the occasion, he stressed that the model presented by the Regional Government aims to protect Public Administration workers, so as to ensure that "the increase in the salary supplement does not entail any loss for any worker when moving from one bracket to the another."
The government official revealed that, in the meantime, the Government has already implemented "an increase in the reference values for civil service salaries set at 10 Euros for the 1st and 2nd salary brackets and at 0.3% for the remaining brackets."
The document now approved also includes the update of a series of measures in terms of legislative integration. They were decided by the Council of the Government on March 13 in the context of the urgent and temporary measures adopted to guarantee public health and safety conditions in the Region due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In this context, the Vice President mentioned the direct hiring of personnel by hospitals and regional health units without prior consultation in order to facilitate the recruitment needs of human resources. Additionally, he pointed out the justification of absences from civil servants who had to stay at home to care for their children up to 14 years of age or in special situations during the closure of schools, daycare centres and kindergartens.
Sérgio Ávila also stressed the authorisation "to suspend amortisations of reimbursable aid provided for in the incentive schemes as well as to anticipate the payment of aid granted under investment incentive schemes."
Moreover, the government official mentioned the regulation of employment support measures, namely the anticipation of liquidity to support the payment of April salaries and the regional measures to complement the simplified layoff scheme, which were approved in March.
All the updates and adjustments presented by the Regional Government provide a significant response to the Azoreans in labour matters as well in social, economic and financial matters, thus contributing to their improvement during these strange times we are living on a global scale.