14th April 2025, Skopje – Wages for employees in cultural institutions are already being paid, and all employees will receive their earned wages, Deputy Minister of Finance, Nikola Jankulovski announced as a response to the MP’s question in the Parliament.
“Ministry of Finance has taken a serious approach to resolving the issue of wage payments to cultural institutions’ employees. Yesterday, approximately Denar 87 million was paid, and the payments will continue throughout today,” Deputy Minister of Finance stated.
He went on that actions are being taken to put a new system in place so as to prevent future issues in view of delays in paying the wages to the employees.
“We are working on raising the standard of living for citizens, cultural workers, and everyone is receiving increased wages, while we fully adhere to all adopted legal solutions, the General Collective Agreement, as well as the separate agreements,” Jankulovski underlined.
He stated that starting from March 2025, in accordance with the existing legal solutions, citizens’ collective agreements, and the determined government policies, the wages were increased for 23,000 employees in the state administration, the kindergartens, the elderly homes, the children’s resorts, the prison officials, as well as the judicial and prosecutorial officials. Afterwards, 3,100 employees in the cultural institutions had their wages increased by 6%, whereby 5,000 employees in higher education and scientific institutes had their wages increased by 8%. “Around 12,000 employees in the Ministry of Internal Affairs received a 10% increase, while employees in primary and secondary education received a 7% increase, upon the 5% raise in October 2024. Additionally, employees in healthcare institutions received a 5% increase, following the 10% raise in October 2024.
“Around 87,000 employees had their wages increased in March, and with such dynamics, as per the legal regulations, we will keep increasing the wages. Along with the increase in pensions, we are also working on increasing the standard of living for citizens,” Deputy Minister of Finance stressed.
