Public-sector salaries likely to increase 2.5 percent next year

SEOUL, Nov. 1 (Yonhap) -- Salaries of workers at South Korea's state-run companies and other public institutions will likely grow about 2.5 percent next year, the finance ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry said that it will hold a meeting next week and produce guidelines on which such public agencies will determine salaries of their workers for next year.

"In line with the decision to raise their salaries to be one percentage point lower than that of government servants for this year, we are now mulling about a 2.5 percent hike for those working at state-run companies and other agencies for next year," a ministry official said.

Earlier, the government decided to raise the salaries of public servants by 3.5 percent for next year.

The envisioned salary hike for workers at state-run enterprises and other public institutions would mark the second straight year of increase. For this year, their salaries grew 4.1 percent.

The guidelines will be used to determine salaries of workers at around 280 state-run enterprises and public institutions, the ministry said.