We previously documented that estimates of developments in public sector average wages differ meaningfully across data sources because of differences in the construction of these indicators for South Africa. Data from the Government Technical Advisory Centre (GTAC) provide a useful benchmark against which to compare the estimates from SARB Quarterly Bulletin and Statistics South Africa’s Quarterly Employment Survey (QES) as they provide detailed data on national and provincial government personal spending. All three measures show that government wages have grown faster than CPI since 2011 overall, but GTAC-implied government remuneration per worker grew slightly faster than the QES and SARB measures over the full period, implying average annual growth in government wages of about 6% per year since 2010.
