New Civil Service Pay Grades Released

Senior managers of the Senior Civil Service, launched on July 1, will get five different salaries based on their work performance instead of the long standing 1-3 system.

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) announced yesterday the classes of 1,240 positions above the director-level after the discussion with the Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs and the Ministry of Planning and Budget.

According to the announcement, about 52.8 percent (655) of the 1,240 positions are included in class three and four, 31.5 percent (391) are in class five, and 15.7 percent (194) are in classes one and two.

Pays are also different depending on the works and responsibilities the civil servants are taking. Under the new compensation rules, annual salaries among high-level officials could differ by up to 9.6 million won. For their performance pay, officials in class one get 12 million won a year while class five servants get 2.4 million won.

The new rules also broke the seniority-oriented system. Some officials in class one went down to class five. But a new director in grade three went up to class three.

Section chiefs were assigned to class one and chief-level director of bureaus went to class two. In class three are policy directors of the main offices, and class four includes director-level heads of bureaus and heads of sections. Officials working for review and dispatched jobs are included in class five.

Officials of science and technology and research got higher position than those of administration. For example, posts in grade one are usually included in class two. But posts like the head of the National Institute of Agricultural Science and Technology and the head of the National Institute of Environmental Research were included in the class one.

An official of the CSC said, “Civil servants in those areas got high marks for the professionalism of their works and creativity. The senior executive civil service system represents a paradigm shift in our approach to government personnel management.”

The CSC did not disclose the bureaus and posts of the officials to protect their privacy.

Tae-Hun Hwang beetlez@donga.com