New South Wales Premier Dominic Perrottet has announced a 3 per cent pay rise for every public sector worker across the state.
Mr Perrottet has also announced every frontline healthcare worker would get a $3,000 bonus to thank them for their COVID service.
The Premier made the announcement this morning while unveiling a one-off $4.5 billion funding package for the health sector in the upcoming state budget.
The package will fund an extra 10,000 doctors, nurses and other health staff across the state.
"Today we're announcing the biggest boost in our health workforce in the state's history and the largest in the country," Mr Perrottet said.
The NSW Teachers Federation said the decision to lift the wage cap from 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent was "not good enough".
The federation's president Angelo Gavrielatos said the announcement "adds insult to injury".
"It does nothing to address the teacher shortage crisis facing NSW public schools or restore to relativities of teacher salaries," he said.
"If we don't pay teachers what they deserve, we won't attract the teachers we need."
Mr Perrottet said a $3,000 payment would be made to healthcare workers as an "appreciation".
"It's been a difficult two years across our state but our worker's have been at the frontline...we really appreciate what you have done for all of us," Mr Perrottet said.
Some of the state's busiest hospitals have been plagued with chronic staff shortages and emergency department delays due to the COVID pandemic, current flu outbreak and population growth.
But State Shadow Health Minister Ryan Park said while he welcomed the extra staff, it would not be enough to fix current problems with the health system.
"We have record-long waits to access emergency departments, record long waits for elective surgery and record long waits to access ambulance care...it's a hospital system under enormous pressure."
Mr Perrottet yesterday announced funding for nearly 2,000 extra paramedics and support staff, to help the system cope.
NSW Ambulance Commissioner Dominic Morgan said he was confident the service would be able to find 1,800 new paramedics.
"As of today, 200 offers of employment are going to university graduate paramedics who are already out there... so that's going to be a significant injection to just take the immediate pressure off us," Mr Morgan said.
