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Topic 09 · Salaries and public-sector staff

Are people doing the same work in different institutions paid differently?

Pay differences between institutions with similar remits and the ratio of management posts to operational ones.

Analyses

6 min · updated 15 October 2026The legal 1-to-12 ceiling between the lowest and the highest public salary, breached at the very top of the stateFramework Law 153/2017 says that nobody paid from public money may earn more than 12 minimum salaries. At the Constitutional Court and the High Court, the rule is not respected, because of supplements.

Documented proposals

Academic research2024
Steluța Enache (independent researcher)
A gradual adjustment of public-sector staff, on the model of 2010
An independent 96-page study, which also synthesises the World Bank's recommendations, proposes a gradual reform of the number of public-sector employees and the removal of distortions in the granting of pay supplements, especially in local government.
Salaries and public-sector staff
Rejected