Self-citation of one's own published work verbatim is considered plagiarism because it essentially presents previously published material as new and original work, undermining the principle of academic integrity and misrepresenting the contribution of new knowledge to a field, even if it's your work, you should always properly cite your previous publications when reusing significant portions of them in a new piece.
I think you are confusing things here:
if a reference to your own previous work is given, you are clearly stating that it is previously published work and not part of the new data of the submission and therefore not to be considered as such by the reviewers. In a properly written and declared document, that is not an ethical problem for that reason. Self-plagiarism would be if you reuse your data without providing the self-citation and thus sell it as new data twice.
The unethical part about self-citation is when you perform it excessively in order to boost metrics like the h-index. I am aware that unfortunately in many countries the h-index is a hard condition for a professorship, and if the appointment committee is lazy, they might not even check for an easily accessible h-index that excludes self-citation. Contesting the validity of such appointment procedures with respect to its impact on the quality of published research is highly appropriate.
Most serious publishers these days offer reviewers a tickbox in which they can give a fast response if excessive self-citation behaviour is observed.
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