Secondary school teachers received the largest share, earning salaries equivalent to 33.93% of the state's total payroll in 2024. This is due to their workforce representing 26.34% of the 390,170 civil servants and other public sector employees.In contrast, military personnel and gendarmes received 18.6% of the state's payroll during the same period, with a workforce accounting for 19.32% of public sector employees.On this basis, defense forces personnel outrank primary school teachers, who make up 15.81% of the total workforce and received 14.9% of salaries paid by the Cameroonian public administration in 2024.Mainly due to these three budget-heavy sectors, Cameroon's wage bill sustainability ratio stood at 38.6% in 2024, up 1.6 percentage points from 2023. For over 15 years, this performance indicator, which measures the ratio of state personnel expenses to tax and customs revenues collected in a year, has consistently exceeded the 35% threshold allowed under the CEMAC's multilateral surveillance criteria. This situation highlights the challenges Cameroon faces in managing its public finances, particularly in controlling personnel expenses. The country's wage bill sustainability ratio has been a concern for several years, and efforts to bring it below the CEMAC threshold may require significant reforms.

According to the Medium-Term Economic and Budgetary Programming Document 2026-2028 currently being reviewed by Parliament, Cameroon's wage bill reached 1,522.8 billion FCFA (approximately 2.7 billion USD) in 2024. This represents an increase of 32.3 billion FCFA (nearly 58 million USD) compared to the previous figure of 1,490.5 billion FCFA (2.6 billion USD). The wage bill for 2024 was projected at 1,487.8 billion FCFA, with an expected increase to 1,663.4 billion FCFA in 2025, marking an 11.6% rise.

CK