Albanian public employees failed to get a salary raise in real terms in 2015, for the first time since 2000, the National Institution of Statistics (INSTAT) said on Tuesday.

INSTAT said that the average salary in the public sector increased by 1.8 percent during 2015, while prices also rose by 1.8 percent.

It said this is the first time that salaries in the public administration failed to exceed the inflation.

As a matter of fact, only a specific group of workers got a salary increase. The salaries of most of the public employees remained unchanged or were even reduced in real terms, according to Albanian Daily News.

Experts have warned that sluggish income rises will result in shrinking consumption and do harm to the economy.