Kingdom of Lesotho: Selected Issues

International Monetary Fund

No 2023/269, IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: This Selected Issues paper focuses on decomposing the public-private sector wage differential in Lesotho. Lesotho’s public wage bill is significantly higher than in other countries in the region. This paper takes a closer look at the civil service wage bill and examines public sector wage premium. It provides an overview of public sector employment and compensation, estimates, explores drivers of the wage premium between the public and private sectors, and conducts a decomposition of the public-private wage gap. The upward inertia in the public wage bill has been gradually crowding out all other government spending. Containing the wage bill is essential to ensure fiscal sustainability and improve income distribution. The upward inertia in the public wage bill has been gradually crowding out all other government spending. Containing the wage bill is essential to ensure fiscal sustainability and improve income distribution. Public sector employment should be reduced and managed using a combination of essential hiring, natural attrition, and staff redeployment.

Keywords: wage distribution; wage premium; D. policy implication; private sector development; wage bill; Wages; Public sector wages; Government wage bill; Public sector; Civil service; Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Southern Africa; Global (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 43
Date: 2023-07-20
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=536786 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfscr:2023/269

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Staff Country Reports from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().