To narrow down the pay difference between civil servants and workers in the private sector in Hong Kong, the Civil Service Bureau will launch a new pay-trend survey by the end of this year.

It is reported that the salaries of high-ranking civil servants are lower than those of their counterparts in the private sector, whereas those of low-ranking civil servants are higher than those in private firms.

The civil service is divided into five levels to compare in salaries with the private sector. Initially, the government planned to collect two-thirds of the pay data from about 100 large companies, and the rest from small- and medium-size companies. But unionists comment that most small companies pay lower salaries than larger enterprises, and it would be unfair to use such data as reference. They suggest reducing the number of small companies to one-fifth of the total.

Civil servants have not had pay rise for about nine years. This is the first pay-level survey for them in 20 years and would affect 160,000 civil servants.