Mechanisms for Determining and Calculating Employee Salaries

- Salary recommendation (Personnel Commission recommendation)

　The Local Public Service Act limits the basic labor rights of public servants (including prohibitions on strikes). To compensate for these restrictions on basic labor rights, the Act stipulates that the Personnel Commission—as a neutral, specialized body—can make recommendations to the Metropolitan Assembly and the governor of Tokyo regarding revisions to salary scales and other employment conditions. As a general rule, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Personnel Commission provides recommendations on revisions to employee salary scales once a year.

　Because government employee salaries (1) are difficult to be market based; (2) need to reasonably conform to general social trends, as government employees are also workers; and (3) are funded by taxpayers, pay scales for government employees are designed to ensure a balance with private sector salaries. Therefore, every year, the Personnel Commission conducts research (in the form of the “General Survey on Tokyo Metropolitan Employee Salaries” and the “General Survey on Private Sector Salaries by Occupation”) to calculate the gap between public and private sector wage levels, and provides salary recommendations.

　Based on this salary recommendation, the governor of Tokyo proposes an ordinance revision, and if this bill passes the Metropolitan Assembly, government employee wages are revised.

　For more information on this process, click here for the Salary Recommendation Procedure.