LA Issues — Part 2: Rethinking Job‑Matching: Toward Fairer Comparisons for EU Local Agents

Mahbuba Abdulloeva, Sumeet Thakkar, Maja Vuckovic-Krcmar, Sunil Kumar, Lejla Sultanovic, Aminata Ongoiba, Helen Conefrey

A question to our colleagues across EU Delegations worldwide:

Since the inclusion of GIZ among the main comparators for the Salary Revision exercises, how satisfied are you with the results? Have you observed any tangible increase in remuneration levels since GIZ entered your list of reference employers? And, more importantly, has any Delegation been able to replace GIZ with a more suitable comparator organisation that better reflects the local labour market?

These questions have become increasingly relevant for many Delegations across the world, where the limitation of reference employees and job-matching exercise based on GIZ structures remains at the heart of the salary revision process.

Limitations of the Current Methodology

The 2014 Salary Revision Method, together with the subsequent Decision of 2021 on the list of reference employers, set the framework for how Local Agents’ salaries are benchmarked. While the goal was to ensure a harmonised and transparent approach across Delegations, the resulting methodology has, over time, revealed substantial limitations.

The limitation stems from the restricted list of nine reference employers established to be used worldwide in the salary revision process. While this aims to ensure consistency across Delegations, it often disadvantages smaller missions and those operating in less diversified host-country labour markets. In such contexts, only a few organisations from the list actually operate locally, resulting in a narrower and less representative comparison base. This effectively pushes the margins even further, leaving smaller Delegations with limited scope for fair benchmarking and placing their Local Agents in a less advantageous position compared to colleagues in larger, more established duty stations.

The Issue of Incorrect and Incomplete Benchmarking

In our local context, the 2021 exercise established a direct comparison between EU Local Agents of grades II and III and GIZ personnel of band 3. This means that Administrative and Finance Assistants (grade II) and EU Secretaries (grade III) are assessed against one band 3 of GIZ. Such an equivalence risks undervaluing the complexity of the EU administrative and financial roles, where staff carry broader, more autonomous, and often policy-linked responsibilities compared to many comparator positions.

Another concern lies in the scope of the GIZ salary scale used for reference. GIZ employs six bands in total (from 1 to 6), covering a wide range of professional tiers. Yet, the EU’s salary comparison model currently includes only bands 1 to 4, systematically excluding the upper levels that reflect more senior or technical expertise. This partial application reduces the representativeness of the data and definitely lowers the benchmark level for corresponding EU grades.

This important aspect concerns the EU Local Agents of grades I and II, many of whom possess solid professional expertise and long-standing experience within the Delegations. These colleagues frequently carry out responsibilities and manage tasks that, in the structures of other international organisations such as UNDP and GIZ, would correspond to higher functional levels or bands. Yet, this upward functional equivalence has not been fully reflected in the job-matching performed by the EU during the salary revision exercises. The current approach appears to place heavier weight on cost containment than on accurately valuing the complexity, autonomy, and professional maturity of Local Agents. While budgetary prudence is legitimate, it should not come at the expense of fairness or recognition of staff whose skills and performance clearly exceed the level at which they are formally benchmarked.

Why a Review Is Needed

2014 Salary Revision Method was supposed to be applied only up to 30 June 2019 – we are almost seven years behind the schedule for the new method to come up – and we have still not yet launched the social dialogue process for the new method. Five years after the 2021 Decision with reference employees, it may be time to reflect on whether the job-matching approach continues to serve its intended purpose. A revised method — one that considers all GIZ and UNDP bands or introduces additional comparable organisations in the national and international labour market — would help ensure a fairer and more accurate alignment of EU Local Agent salaries.

Reassessing the reference employers and revisiting the 2014 and 2021 frameworks would be a strong signal of the EU’s ongoing commitment to fairness, transparency, and staff motivation. For the Delegations, it would also reaffirm that each Local Agent’s contribution — whether in administration, finance, policy, or support — is valued and appropriately recognised.

The evolution of our responsibilities and the increasing complexity of Delegation work deserve to be matched by a salary benchmarking system that keeps pace. Perhaps the time has come to open this conversation across Delegations — and to collectively invite a closer look at how our job-matching exercises are conducted and how fairly they reflect our work.

While the new Salary Revision Method is still under development and unlikely to enter into force in the coming years, the current situation requires urgent temporary measures to prevent further demotivation of staff and growing disparities across grades. So many Local Agents are directly affected by the existing benchmarking gaps, especially those whose positions fall below the fair market level. Readjustments of the 2021 job-matching will ensure a more balanced treatment until the updated methodology is officially adopted. This would demonstrate the EU’s commitment to valuing its workforce and maintaining equitable employment conditions across Delegations, even in the transitional period. And the faster it is done, the better.

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