Civil service: the “exceptional purchasing power bonus” paid in the coming days

2023-10-25 10:27:38

Good news for thousands of civil servants. The “exceptional purchasing power bonus”, announced in June by the Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini, and intended for certain agents, will be paid at the same time as the payment of the October salary, i.e. “in the next few days depending on the employers,” indicates the ministry to Le Parisien. Some could receive it in next month’s salary.

This bonus is aimed at agents of the state civil service and the hospital civil service as well as the military, whether they are permanent or contract workers, specified the decree published on July 31 in the Official Journal. This includes a wide spectrum of professions, such as teachers, prefectural agents or even ministries, or around 2 million agents. Those in the local civil service, however, are not affected by this system, as are pupils and students on internships.

The bonus will be paid to agents who received, between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023, remuneration less than or equal to 39,000 euros gross, or 3,250 euros gross per month maximum. This concerns 70% of hospital workers and half of state workers, according to the ministry. It ranges between 300 and 800 euros depending on the resources of the eligible person, a scale was published in conjunction with the decree, detailing the annual gross remuneration ceilings for each bracket.

On the National Education side, this bonus is aimed at some 730,000 agents, or “more than one in two” indicated Minister Gabriel Attal in September. In detail, “500,000 teachers (…) will receive an average of 380 euros” and “230,000 other staff”, notably those supporting students with disabilities (AESH), will receive an average of 500 euros, he said. The unions had deplored “a one-off bonus, while we are asking for a significant increase in value for everyone”, Sophie Vénétitay, general secretary of Snes-FSU, the first secondary education union (middle and high schools), explained to AFP.

Cushioning the shock of inflation

This system is part of the ministry’s overall desire to support the purchasing power of public agents, in an inflationary context. “I want to do more for the working and middle classes in the civil service, the lowest paid agents, who provide our public services on a daily basis (…). In the current context, this is my priority,” declared Stanislas Guerini in a press release published this Wednesday. At the end of June, he announced “an effort of 3.5 billion euros in 2023 and 6 billion in 2024”.

This exceptional bonus therefore complements other measures taken in this direction. On July 1, the index point (which serves as the basis for calculating remuneration) was increased by 1.5%, as announced by the minister. He also committed to granting “5 index points to all” on January 1, 2024, i.e. agents of the three public services. Clearly, each level will be increased by 5 points, or the equivalent of 25 euros per month on average.