Pay Determination in the Spanish Public Sector

Abstract

In 1977 the Spanish unemployment rate was below 5 per cent, public employment was less than 10 per cent of national employment, and the compensation of public sector employees, public consumption and total public expenditure amounted to 7.3, 10 and 25 per cent of GDP, respectively. At that time, the Spanish public sector was not only under-developed, but also heavily centralised, and the criteria for the selection and the promotion of public sector employees were mostly political rather than economic. The unemployment rate is now about 20 per cent, public employment is roughly 18 per cent of aggregate employment and the compensation of public sector employees, public consumption, and total public expenditure are roughly 11.6, 16 and 45 per cent of GDP, respectively. In 20 years, Spain has thus developed a public sector of similar size to that of the average European country. The Spanish public sector has also changed in other respects: it is more and more decentralised and human resource management relies more on economic than on political criteria, although there is much to be improved in this field.1KeywordsPublic SectorCivil ServantPublic AdministrationWage DifferentialPublic EmployeeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.