After the latest changes to the two Basic Collective Agreements for the Civil Service (“Hovedtariffavtalene”) the systems for how the salaries of PhDs employed at state universities develop have become somewhat different. A system change for automatic salary increases due to seniority means that all PhDs will now get their guaranteed increase as a 3% increase in their salary instead of an increased pay grade.
In short, PhD candidates who are members of NTL will also have a guaranteed salary increase that is not secure for other PhDs. This can be exemplified as follows:
If you are a PhD and member of NTL, the monetary value of your pay grade was increased by 10 000 NOK from May 1st. The automatic salary increase you get as a PhD (3% per year) comes in addition to this increase. If you for instance started as a PhD on June 1st 2021, you were most likely placed in pay grade 54, at the time 491 200 NOK. After the central wage negotiations for members of NTL, the value of pay grade 54 increased by 10 000 to 501 200 NOK. Your next automatic increase due to seniority will give you a 3% increase of this, that is 15 036 NOK in salary increase to that your salary is 516 236 NOK from June 1st 2022. (On your paycheck this will be expressed as pay grade 55 + 6736 NOK since it is almost pay grade 56.) In the next central wage negotiations, you will get the new (increased) value of pay grade 55 and keep the 6736 on top of that before you get another 3% raise when your seniority increase kicks in.
If all wage negotiations for the next years are exactly similar to this year’s, the salary for PhDs who are members of NTL will develop in this way:
June 2021: 491 200
June 2022: 516 236
June 2023: 542 023
June 2024: 568 524
In comparison, the wage increases for PhDs who are not organized or members of other unions are, apart from the 3% yearly increase, dependent on what Forskerforbundet, Akademikerne and employers locally agree to in local negotiations. If, for instance, a local general salary increase is 1,3% (as is the case at UiB this year), the result will be for a PhD starting at the same level of 491 200 will be 497 568 NOK before the seniority increase on June 1st and 512 513 after this increase. If this result is replicated for the years to come, the salary increase for PhDs outside NTL will be as follows:
June 2021: 491 200
June 2022: 512 513
June 2023: 534 751
June 2024: 557 954