CHINA-ECONOMY: LOCAL GOVERNMENTS DELAY PAYING WAGES

Civil servants in Leiyang were supposed to receive their wages on May 15, but their pay was only released on June 8. A government staff had complained on Chinese social media on June 1 that: “It’s the first day of June, but my wages for May has not been paid after a month of hard work. Rumor has it that we won’t receive our wages in June; when would we get paid, and how are we to sustain our livelihood?” According to an official document explaining the delay in payment of salaries, the Leiyang government was faced with a worsening fiscal deficit every year due to the city’s shrinking coal industry (administrative fees shrunk by 1 billion yuan [about $156 million] between 2012 to 2017). Leiyang’s financial revenue dropped by 18.36 percent in 2016, and fell 15.35 percent in the first five months of 2018. Meanwhile, wages and expenditure on key welfare projects have been increasing year after year. In a separate incident on June 11, reporters and editors of state media Qiqihar Television carried banners outside the station’s headquarters to protest for their wages, according to photos circulated on Chinese social media.

(Comment: Leiyang is a county-level in Hunan province.)






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