Government pledges salary and pension hikes.
Postimees Digest, Friday, September 6
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Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said it is the government's goal to restore all public sector salaries to their pre-crisis level. «That is what we will be aiming for in next year's state budget,» the PM said. Ansip added that fears, according to which the public sector will become the locomotive for salary advance are unfounded as those leads have been in the hands of its private counterpart for some time now. The Prime Minister also said at yesterday's government press conference that the 2014 budget will outdo this year's by 200-300 million euros and that budget growth concerns all areas. Minister of Social Affairs Hanno Pevkur said that unexpectedly rapid salary advance and falling unemployment will make it possible to hike pensions by 5.8 percent on average next year, making for the biggest leap in five years. The minister added that Estonia's almost six percent hike is possibly among the fastest in Europe and should leave pensioners with an additional 20 euros per month.