There are some 688,000 persons collecting regular pay checks from the Dominican government according to the Social Security Treasury (TSS). That was the number as of 31 December 2021. This comes after government efforts to pare the payrolls by eliminating double jobs, pensioners, the deceased, those in prison, and those that never showed up for work.
Although hundreds if not thousands of names were stripped from the different payrolls, the Abinader administration has consistently added more employees — fixed and temporary, as new administrations have done in the past.
Observers will note that in January of 2020 there were 674,000 government employees, and this declined to 624,000 after the July 2020 general elections. In August 2020, with the change of government, the payroll increased by 4,700, and since then it has been creeping upwards.
Over RD$21 billion a month goes out to these employees, and the average salary is over RD$34,000. However, Public Administration Minister Castillo Lugo says that not many people have been added to the payrolls, and what is being reflected is that many who had been receiving government payments and have been moved into one of the two categories (fixed or temporary) and therefore have entered the files of the Social Security Treasury.
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Diario Libre
21 February 2022