Negotiations between the federal government and servers culminated in 48 agreements in 2024, which agreed to grant salary adjustments and promoted the lengthening of these careers, one of the pillars of administrative reform which did not advance in Congress. Increasing the number of steps needed to reach the top of the career ladder brings some relief on bills of the Executive, but this restructuring divides civil servants and requires complementation for greater effectiveness.
After granting a linear adjustment of 9% for all careers in 2023 and food, health and daycare benefits this year, the government signed an agreement with most employees to staggered salary adjustments – in January 2025 and April 2026, which ends negotiations for a raise in this administration -, in addition to the restructuring of careers.
The Secretary of Labor Relations of the Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services (MGI), Jose Lopez Feijooexplains that before this process, only 30% of civil service careers had 20 standards – which are the steps necessary to reach the top. The rule, according to him, was 13 standards.
“We will have 86% of careers with 20 standards from January, which is when the agreements will come into effect. There is a restructuring process quite important”, he argues.
Asked if this is a type of administrative reform without the presentation of a new Proposed Amendment to the Constitution (PEC), Feijóo says yes. “This is also an issue of interest to the government, having longer careers. The categories received a good adjustment in their salary structure, but at the same time the government also managed to lengthen careers”, he says.
Rudinei Marques, president of the National Permanent Forum on Typical State Careers (Fonacate), says that of the 48 agreements signed by the government, at least 39 included the lengthening of careers. “There is an administrative reform actually taking placewith the lengthening of careers, the Unified National Competitionwhich proposes to democratize access to public services, the General Competition Law that parameterized them throughout the country and the digitalization of services”, he mentions.
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He also points to the Performance Management Program, which established the teleworking ea delivery management. “This greatly increased the productivity of public service. It is a performance assessment in practice, because the server is measured on its deliveries every three months, in general. A lot has happened and it happens at such a fast pace that it is difficult for us to map everything that was implemented in these two years of government”, he says.
Insper’s economics professor Juliana Inhasz assesses that the restructuring of careers without a broad administrative reform is timid. “You lengthen careers and public servants will take longer to reach the top. But the fact is that everyone will arrive. There are many questions about the existence of clearer metrics for productivity, to even support this progression”, he says.
For her, a broader measure that also encompasses the discussion of what productivity is and that limits reaching the top of the career ladder would be more beneficial. “If you impose a tougher rule for this employee to reach the top of their career, not everyone will reach it, and this, without a doubt, also helps to contain some of the personnel costs”, he ponders.
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Divergences
Resuming dialogue and equalizing standards were important steps in evaluating Sergio Ronaldo, representative of the Forum of National Entities of Federal Public Servants (Fonasefe), but, for him, still missing a lot for real career restructuring.
The trade unionist defends a unified guideline and the agglutination of positionsto eliminate discrepancies in entry and career progression for similar functions in different bodies. He also questions this year’s negotiation model. “This process weakened, at times, some careers and others had their structures strengthened due to its weight”, he assesses.
The legal director of the Confederation of Workers in the Federal Public Service (Condsef), Edison Cardoniconsiders that this year’s negotiations have a serious problem. “MGI’s policy in the negotiations caused a increase in salary distortions between civil servants with the same level of education, often even within the same career”, he said, highlighting that there was resistance in relation to career extension. For him, there is a elitization of public servicewith the reduction of mid-level and auxiliary positions, prioritizing higher-level hiring.
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According to Feijóo, from MGI, there are 16 working groups set up to deal with specific career demands, ranging from changes in nomenclature to proposals to require higher education. The government also addressed a demand for bonus payment which was spreading across careers, especially after Federal Revenue auditors obtained the regulation of a productivity bonus, established by law in 2017.
“We made it clear to the categories in this negotiation that the government would no longer open a bonus policy, that it would be restricted to the careers they have already obtained, tax auditors and revenue analysts and labor tax auditors”, says Feijóo.
Tax auditors carried out a greve last year to guarantee payment of the bonus. Now, they are mobilized again in search of a salary adjustment. Feijóo points out that, with the payment of the bonus, Revenue auditors will have one of the highest salaries in the public service, which could reach R$41,500 in 2026, in the sum of salary and bonus.
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“How do I justify that a category that can receive R$41,500 with bonuses will still have some other type of adjustment? There is only one possibility: if any negotiated adjustment is offset by a reduction in the bonus. It’s as simple as that, to be fair even with other careers”, he emphasizes.
