Secretary of State John Kerry addressed the staff of the U.S. embassy in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on Thursday as part of a seven-day trip through Africa. During his remarks, Kerry recognized the work of the foreign nationals employed by the embassy, and he singled out two nationals who recently received awards for their work in the foreign service. Kerry then used the opportunity to give all the nationals who work for the embassy some welcome news: an enormous pay increase of 42 percent (though during his remarks the secretary misspoke and said 45 percent):
Kerry went on to tell the remaining staff that they would also receive a pay raise, albeit significantly smaller than that being given to the nationals:
Since Secretary Kerry said in his remarks that “[a]ll of the Foreign Service nationals” would be getting a pay increase, it was unclear if the statement applied only to the Ethiopian embassy or worldwide. In response to an email inquiry, a State Department official replied:
As Secretary Kerry closed his talk with the embassy staff, he came back to the pay raise once more:
UPDATE: A State Department official, requesting anonymity, writes in to revise the original statement:
“This reference to 42% applies only to the local staff at the embassy in Ethiopia. After a three year wage freeze economic conditions in various countries around the world have resulted in varying increases to a number of U.S. embassies. U.S. law requires that embassies compensate their local employees according to prevailing practice. So while Ethiopia will receive an increase, along with another 75 or so posts this year, there remains a larger number that will not get any increase since the labor markets in those countries do not show that increases are warranted.”
