Avatars of salary

By Sergey ABAKSHIN

“If you are satisfied with your salary, then it is something wrong with your fantasy”

Boris Trushkin

Salaries in Kazakhstan can’t be identified with one word: huge, small and middle. They are different. From poverty line to astronomical, and from honest to none-deserved. They can be colored also — “white”, “black” and “grey”. Salaries in governmental, quazi-governmental and private sectors are very different from each other and by themselves. At that, their coming to common denominator can’t be observed yet.

Share of salaries in domestic GDP of Kazakhstan is torn between 30 and 35 per cent. Although the statistics in Kazakhstan is the thing of traditional convolution, it is clear without it that Astana is far from developed countries with its share of salaries in GDP up to 65-70%. The period of economic crisis is remarkable by the reason that real salary level of the society is falling down.

The cheaper you can hire an employee, the more money would leave for employer. The higher level of unemployment, the more people would agree to work for less money. Because almost everything in Kazakhstan is shared and shortcut on straight owner, then lower salaries of employees are profitable to employers. Due to almost all of elitists have their own businesses (themselves, or their wives, children, brothers, parents or nephews), then they are not interested in decrease of their own income. That’s why the state is calmly reacted on salaries around the level of living wage or even lower than it is.

To be honest, there is one major reason for that. There are many different resources in the Republic of Kazakhstan (lands, natural resources), but few of population. As the result, it is impossible to pay salaries on the same level as in Bangladesh or China. Employers are solving this problem through virtually uncontrolled labour immigration from south republics of former Soviet Central Asia. Eventually, Uzbeks are working on cotton fields, Kyrgyz – on tobacco, Karakalpaks on construction sites, and our own people are sitting without any job. In conditions of domestic crisis this warms up social and ethnical discord.

There are moments, which playing to heighten salaries level, but they are almost not concerning the low level of pyramid. In its time there was substancial scandal, when Nursultan Nazarbayev reported that Hayrat Karibzhanov, president of national telecommunications company Kazakhtelecom monthly salary was US365 grand. Then Sauat Minbayev, executive director of Samruk Kazyna national holding, reported, that Mr. Karibzhanov got US140 of net salary, altogether with US1.7mln bonus, but in conscience of common people the initial figure had fixed all the same.

Then the top managers in national holdings and companies with big governmental shares were took measures to hide their incomes. Nevertheless, the amounts are impressive. The more especially as, besides bonuses and rewards, there can be business trips with huge daily benefits, representative expenses and luxury rooms payment in five star hotels on account of companies. In all, financial flows in such organizations are deep and complicated enough when it concerns top managers. It is including innit both corporate parties with star guests, and charter flights, and promotional gifts by the price of middle class car.

If to observe Samruk Kazyna national welfare fund or KazMunaiGas national company, then excessive structure of highest offices is striking the eye. Positions that require only one manager are artificially segmented on 3 to 4 offices, with comparable financial support. On lower levels of management hierarchy departments and structural divisions are making up, which are either doing nothing or their activity by its final result is so insignificant for core operations than it is invisible to everybody. Of course, people can’t get such sacred job by accident, only friends, relatives or protégé. That’s why such company as KazMunaiGas is vulgarly called “Company of lucky nephews”.

Only governmental structures or companies with state participation could afford such needless ballast in such huge amounts. Because private company by the laws of economy can’t aliment any major number of idlers. In science research and analytical facilities, subsided by governmental finance, whole picture is repeating the situation in governmental structures. In truth, high managing office with big salaries is smaller here, but there are more positions, on which you could do nothing (with support from high) and receive salary.

Recent public roast from president Nazarbayev, concerning all those research and other analytical centers was from “enough” category. One thing, when such structures are eating state funds in economically good times, giving back nothing; and completely other thing, when the same picture observed in the period of crisis with all its lack of resources. Then slow state machine in some moment is starting to ask, where the money gone? When research center was built by local paradoxical model, where only two or three men are working and the other 20-30 are doing nothing, receiving the same salary, then head-hunting of those who work by some company or rival organization is leading to complete uselessness of the whole shop.

Low salaries in small and middle-sized business have complex reason. From one side it is depressed by big companies, which are trying to monopolize interesting sectors of economics by all means, thus giving no space to live for small and middle players; from the other, suppression by corrupted officials, against which small and middle business is far less sustainable than big one.

Layer of high-paid wage men is keeping in crisis conditions too – manager, touristic operators, security officers, victuallers and people of rare professions, but their feeding environments is limited.

Authorities, policemen, army officers, customs workers, and judges in Kazakhstan is low-paid category of jobs. And if they eating in expensive restaurants, riding luxury vehicles or wearing diamonds – it is the result of corruption. Middle hand authority, who lives only on salary, couldn’t keep his family.

Within years of the independency structure of industrial production in Kazakhstan became less complicated. As the result, economics doesn’t require high-qualified workers, engineers and technologists in former amounts. They have demand only in raw sectors of economy, metallurgy and energy supply. One of the few sectors, which have necessity for high-paid workers, is telecommunications and information technologies.

In conditions of extreme monopolization of economy, the salaries of common working people in Kazakhstan are carrying additional expenses. Because of the monopolies any big business from one side has additional possibilities to involve cheap labour (weak competition for it), and from the other can pump additional profit, holding monopoly high prices on goods, services and tariffs. Anti-monopoly law in the country is virtually doesn’t work.