The findings of a survey conducted by the Macau Chinese Civil Servants Association released on Thursday show that civil servants’ morale is low.
A total of 1,263 civil servants were surveyed.
Cheong Koc Iun, vice president of the group, which is affiliated with the Macau Federation of Trade Unions (Gung Luen), suggested the government set a good example to staff.
According to the findings, over 40 percent of the respondents said their morale was low, while less than 10 percent said it was high. In addition, about 55 percent said they were pessimistic about their prospects of promotion, while only 7.28 percent said they were optimistic about it.
Moreover, the findings showed that about 55 percent said they found the training the government provided in the last two years was useless as a step to promotion, while less than 15 percent replied that they found the training helpful.
Despite common criticism by the public that the number of civil servants keeps increasing, nearly half of the respondents said they felt that there is a shortage of manpower in their departments, while just about a fifth of respondents said otherwise.
In addition, 27.95 percent had a bad perception of the chief executive and principal officials, while 59.94 percent described them as “so-so”. Only 12.11 percent said they had a good perception of them.
The findings showed that the respondents were most upset about doing the same job but at different salary levels, followed by superiors showing favouritism and mistreating staff.
Cheong gave several suggestions on how to improve civil servants’ morale, saying the government should further improve its transparency and accountability.
He also said that the government should provide more homes for civil servants, while the issue of civil servants having the same type of job but earning different salaries must be resolved by the government. (macaunews/macaupost)
