Survey: Public sector workers ahead in pay

 Tanzania’s public sector workers are paid better than their counterparts in the private sector, according to Employees and Earning Survey, 2015.

The survey, published recently by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), shows that the majority of public sector employees are paid more than Sh300,000 while most of those in the private sector earn less than Sh300,000.

Tanzania had 2 million employees by 2015, of whom 1.28 million (63 per cent) were from the private sector, while 0.775 million were from the public sector.

The survey indicates that seven out of ten formal employees in Tanzania, both public and private sector, earn monthly wage rate ranging from Sh100,000 and Sh500,000.

Half of private sector employees earn monthly salary ranging from Sh100,000 to Sh500,000, while the public sector, the majority (27 per cent) earn monthly salaries ranging from Sh300,001 to Sh900,000.

While two out of ten (1.7 per cent) public employees earn monthly salary ranging from Sh900,001 to Sh1.5 million, earnings for their counterparts in the private sector also stand at two out of ten (1.5 per cent).

However, the findings further reveal that the proportion of employees earning monthly wages above Sh1.5 million was slightly larger in private sector (2.1 per cent) than in public sector (1.9 per cent). On gender perspective, the majority of employees earning up to Sh100,000 per month were female at 8 per cent lower than 5.7 per cent male while male also dominated the highest percentage of those earning between Sh100,001 and Sh300,000 by 36.2 per cent higher than 31.3 per cent female. Employees earning monthly wage of between Sh300,001 and Sh500,000 were the same between male and female as both accounted for 24.7 per cent.

Financial and insurance professions are the highest paid jobs in Tanzania, after the employment and earning survey 2015 showed that they earn ten times of Sh150,000 minimum wage.

The survey shows further that three out of ten employees in insurance and financial sectors earn the whooping monthly salary of Sh1.5 million and above.

The report shows that five out of ten employees in the same sectors earn monthly income of Sh500,001 to Sh1.5 million.

The second highly paid jobs are in mining and quarrying as the survey shows six out of ten employees are said to earn monthly income of Sh500,001 to Sh1.5 million. Six out of hundred (15 per cent) earn monthly salary of Sh1.5 million or more.

Teachers and school administrators were listed as the third highest paid as the survey shows that five out of ten people earn Sh500,000 and above. However, only five per cent of the employees in the sector earn Sh1.5 million and above.

The lowest paid are those working in both administrative and support services and agriculture, fishing and livestock activities as eight out of ten are earning monthly salary ranging from Sh100,000 and Sh300,000.

Generally, the survey shows that public sector employees are paid handsomely than those working in the private sector.