Public v Private Sector

MCannon

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/official-figures-show-disparity-between-public-and-private-sector-wage-growth-454888.html

Check this link. Look at the difference in theaverage wages. I can't beleive that public sector workers can complain in the slightest about their situation. The most overpaid useless t*ssers the world has ever known

Mr. Incognito

Moved to Irish economy- not a taxation matter.

Also before you go off on your rant

The data excludes the effect of the public sector pension levy.

murf313

MCannon wrote: »

http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/official-figures-show-disparity-between-public-and-private-sector-wage-growth-454888.html

Check this link. Look at the difference in theaverage wages. I can't beleive that public sector workers can complain in the slightest about their situation. The most overpaid useless t*ssers the world has ever known

oh great another bashing thread......

at least get your facts right before you go off on your little childish rant :rolleyes:

aoboa

What's the % of third level qualified people in the the public and private sectors?

RichardAnd

930 eur per week average? I think not. The average wage in the PS is about 35k a year which is NOT 930 per week.

Welease

aoboa wrote: »

What's the % of third level qualified people in the the public and private sectors?

That really shouldn't be an indicator. You cannot remain competitive by paying people based on their qualification, if a job/skill does not require those qualifications. An admin job should be paid an admin competitive wage irrespective of whether or not you have a doctorate

A skill set/requirement breakdown would be very interesting though... but then of course the problem is matching across varied sectors..

I suspect any data produced could as usual be spun to prove whatever point someone was trying to make.

ParkRunner

On average, public sector workers tend to be better qualified, with 59 per cent holding some type of third-level qualification compared to 33 per cent of workers in the private sector. Public sector workers also have more work experience, an average of 20 years compared to 16 years for private sector workers. In addition, a higher proportion of public sector workers are in professional and associate professional occupations. All these factors would support public sector workers having higher earnings.

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/27906/1/WP270.pdf

aoboa

EF wrote: »

http://www.tara.tcd.ie/bitstream/2262/27906/1/WP270.pdf

So the public sector are approx 150% more qualified than the private sector.
Interesting.

IrishTonyO

RichardAnd wrote: »

930 eur per week average? I think not. The average wage in the PS is about 35k a year which is NOT 930 per week.

Really, where you get the figure of 35k being the average? the official figures say otherwise, so where do you get your figures from?

Mr. Incognito

Ae but the fact of the matter is that the private sector drives the economy while the public sector are nothing but leeches on it.

aoboa

Mr. Incognito wrote: »

Ae but the fact of the matter is that the private sector drives the economy while the public sector are nothing but leeches on it.

Both are necessary.

Welease

<i didnt read the report>

But thats what I meant .. the PS will have proportionally more higher qualified positions by virtue of the type of work it does.. The PrS include retail, restaurants and a plethora of other positions that would generally not require a 3rd level education.

In order to understand the equality of compensation, you need to look at the comparative pay for similar qualified positions. In that respect the often quoted (I'll try and dig up a link, but I can neither vouch for or refute the correctness), is that the ESRI (iirc) put PS pay at a 23% premium over PrS pay (not including pension which recent studies suggest adding another 25-30%)..

True or not.. I have no idea..

aoboa

Welease wrote: »

<i didnt read the report>

But thats what I meant .. the PS will have proportionally more higher qualified positions by virtue of the type of work it does.. The PrS include retail, restaurants and a plethora of other positions that would generally not require a 3rd level education.

In order to understand the equality of compensation, you need to look at the comparative pay for similar qualified positions. In that respect the often quoted (I'll try and dig up a link, but I can neither vouch for or refute the correctness), is that the ESRI (iirc) put PS pay at a 23% premium over PrS pay (not including pension which recent studies suggest adding another 25-30%)..

True or not.. I have no idea..

Exactly - the average wage isn't comparable.

Welease

RichardAnd wrote: »

930 eur per week average? I think not. The average wage in the PS is about 35k a year which is NOT 930 per week.

I think the unions stated below 35K was low paid, not that it was the average pay in the PS.

Welease

aoboa wrote: »

Exactly - the average wage isn't comparable.

Oh absolutely.. it can't possibly be.

RichardAnd

IrishTonyO wrote: »

Really, where you get the figure of 35k being the average? the official figures say otherwise, so where do you get your figures from?

I can't quote figures unfortunately as this one came from a mix of experience and connections I have in the PS. From what I know about public sector wages, 930 a week just sounds way, WAY off. You can disbelieve me if you wish.

SpodoKamodo

Adjusting the 930 euro to include the pension levy, what would the net figure be? Don't know the %.

IrishTonyO

RichardAnd wrote: »

I can't quote figures unfortunately as this one came from a mix of experience and connections I have in the PS. From what I know about public sector wages, 930 a week just sounds way, WAY off. You can disbelieve me if you wish.

These are the official figures compiled by the CSO, of course I will believe them and not you just because you know some people in the PS.

RichardAnd

IrishTonyO wrote: »

These are the official figures compiled by the CSO, of course I will believe them and not you just because you know some people in the PS.

I don't particularly care what you choose to believe but you would do well to take figures with a pinch of salt. A good statistician can skew numbers to say alot.

changes

Average don't tell you alot.

2 cleaners, 2 engineers and 2 senior managers..... what would presenting the average of these really tell you (apart from the average;))?

Welease

changes wrote: »

Average don't tell you alot.

2 cleaners, 2 engineers and 2 senior managers..... what would presenting the average of these really tell you (apart from the average;))?

That its the HSE? 1/3 being managers (sorry couldnt resist)

SpodoKamodo

changes wrote: »

Average don't tell you alot.

2 cleaners, 2 engineers and 2 senior managers..... what would presenting the average of these really tell you (apart from the average;))?

This is true in the fact that it won't tell you too much about individuals in the sample (due to outliers).

However, I would believe that the presence of outliers that would skew the average would be more prominent in the private sector (the uber wealthy that the people in the PS unions seem to want to be taxed more heavily so that they don't have to take cuts).

So the only reason I could see for the higher average wage in the PS would be too many working at management level and above, or maybe remuneration levels being too high across the board.

ParkRunner

aoboa wrote: »

So the public sector are approx 150% more qualified than the private sector.
Interesting.

Pretty much yes and while we could get away with such a situation during a period of full employment during the celtic tiger era, higher skilled jobs are only slowly coming on stream in the private sector, while workers with various skill profiles compete for the jobs that are there at the moment.

Welease

EF wrote: »

Pretty much yes and while we could get away with such a situation during a period of full employment during the celtic tiger era, higher skilled jobs are only slowly coming on stream in the private sector, while workers with various skill profiles compete for the jobs that are there at the moment.

With respect people may be reading more into that data than actually exists..

PS people are not 150% more "qualified", they may have higher qualifications per capita given the smaller more specific workforce (i.e. no retail/restaurant segments which in general don't require 3rd level qualifications). They would in general be equally qualified to their PrS counterparts when comparing equivalent roles, i.e. an accountant/IT/management role will require similar qualifications in both the PrS and PS.

ParkRunner

SpodoKamodo wrote: »

So the only reason I could see for the higher average wage in the PS would be too many working at management level and above, or maybe remuneration levels being too high across the board.

I think the lower paid would definitely skew the figures downwards for the private sector a lot more than the few who are raking it in.

dan_d

Averages mean very little as a hard piece of data.
To really understand the data, you need the amount of people the average was taken over and probably a rough idea of how many people were earning certain amounts within the overall number of people.
Otherwise it's not telling you even half the story.

SpodoKamodo

EF wrote: »

I think the lower paid would definitely skew the figures downwards for the private sector a lot more than the few who are raking it in.

Which shows that the PS is existing in an artificial economic environment

Cookie_Monster

IrishTonyO wrote: »

Really, where you get the figure of 35k being the average? the official figures say otherwise, so where do you get your figures from?

thats the average industrial wage

In regards to that graph; the lowest group really needs to be brought more into the tax net (be in public or private)

50% of pop accounting for 2% of tax, totally unsustainable

IrishTonyO

Just be aware the graphs above are for the year 2008, the figures released today were for the year 2009

danbohan

aoboa wrote: »

So the public sector are approx 150% more qualified than the private sector.
Interesting.

of course , you mean you did not know ?. look at the brilliant intelligent service you get from all our public servants , not alone do 60% have third level qualifications but 9 out 10 are members of mensa , we are not paying them what they are worth at all!

ardmacha

but 9 out 10 are members of mensa

Do you have a source for this or did you just make it up?

ParkRunner

IrishTonyO wrote: »

Just be aware the graphs above are for the year 2008, the figures released today were for the year 2009

That's true but with approaching 2 million workers earning under 60,000 the basic point was that average of total private sector pay is lower because of the large numbers earning a low wage. A sample of 300,000 private sector workers could well show a similar average wage to the current public sector average wage.

aoboa

danbohan wrote: »

of course , you mean you did not know ?. look at the brilliant intelligent service you get from all our public servants , not alone do 60% have third level qualifications but 9 out 10 are members of mensa , we are not paying them what they are worth at all!

Yawn.
Like you get great service from all parts of the private sector. Ever tried calling NTL?

The point is that, in general, you can't really compare the two sectors.
The percentage of jobs in the public sector which require qualifications is far higher than the private sector.
I take get that percentage and compare it to the percentage wage difference between the two sectors and work it so the public sector actually deserve a pay rise.
Stats are to easy to play with and the article at the start of this thread is rubbish.
Let it wind you up if you like - it's all nonsense.

Sleepy

RichardAnd wrote: »

I don't particularly care what you choose to believe but you would do well to take figures with a pinch of salt. A good statistician can skew numbers to say alot.

Given that these statistics are provided by public sector workers should we then presume that the gap is actually higher?

aoboa wrote: »

So the public sector are approx 150% more qualified than the private sector.
Interesting.

Some of this is to do with the nature of the jobs in question e.g. doctors needing to be qualified etc. There's also a couple of less-obvious factors that contribute to this imho:

1. More flexible work practices make it easier for PS workers to obtain part-time post graduate qualifications.

2. From what I've seen of the IT sections of a wide range of PS sectors, they're far more likely to have their training paid for and carried out during working hours than the private sector where you're more likely to learn by doing and gain accredition in your own time. (Not sure if budgets for this sort of training have dried up in the PS since the recession hit or not but training weeks were widespread during 2005 - 2008 when I was working with PS sites) Some of the "reasons" for the training were completely spurious too, I saw one person having photography courses paid for because they took some pictures for the staff newsletter!

3. Many of the qualifications counted are completely irrelevant to the positions the holder occupies e.g. BA in Philosophy and Politics working as a cashier in a Local Authority, MA in History working as an Accounts Assistant etc. (real life examples, sure there are lots more examples of this).

4. Bonus Payments for qualification level as seen in teaching, nursing, the gardaí etc. I know quite a few guys who did primary degrees and post grads before joining An Gardaí Siochanna because they wanted the college "experience" (i.e. piss up) and knew the letters after their name would bump their salaries up when they applied even if a Masters in Marketing would be of limited use to them in the service. In the PrS you're paid the market value of the service you provide, regardless of qualification. Otherwise you'd have McDonalds staff being paid 80k a year for holding a doctorate whilst flipping burgers.

5. Inflation of qualification levels. Nothing against either but why exactly would one require a "Master of Library and Information Studies" in order to work as a Local Authority library rather simply a few weeks on the job training or a Diploma in Tourism in order to work in the ticket office/gift shop of a heritage site is beyond me.

aoboa

Sleepy wrote: »

Given that these statistics are provided by public sector workers should we then presume that the gap is actually higher?


Some of this is to do with the nature of the jobs in question e.g. doctors needing to be qualified etc. There's also a couple of less-obvious factors that contribute to this imho:

1. More flexible work practices make it easier for PS workers to obtain part-time post graduate qualifications.

2. From what I've seen of the IT sections of a wide range of PS sectors, they're far more likely to have their training paid for and carried out during working hours than the private sector where you're more likely to learn by doing and gain accredition in your own time. (Not sure if budgets for this sort of training have dried up in the PS since the recession hit or not but training weeks were widespread during 2005 - 2008 when I was working with PS sites) Some of the "reasons" for the training were completely spurious too, I saw one person having photography courses paid for because they took some pictures for the staff newsletter!

3. Many of the qualifications counted are completely irrelevant to the positions the holder occupies e.g. BA in Philosophy and Politics working as a cashier in a Local Authority, MA in History working as an Accounts Assistant etc. (real life examples, sure there are lots more examples of this).

4. Bonus Payments for qualification level as seen in teaching, nursing, the gardaí etc. I know quite a few guys who did primary degrees and post grads before joining An Gardaí Siochanna because they wanted the college "experience" (i.e. piss up) and knew the letters after their name would bump their salaries up when they applied even if a Masters in Marketing would be of limited use to them in the service. In the PrS you're paid the market value of the service you provide, regardless of qualification. Otherwise you'd have McDonalds staff being paid 80k a year for holding a doctorate whilst flipping burgers.

5. Inflation of qualification levels. Nothing against either but why exactly would one require a "Master of Library and Information Studies" in order to work as a Local Authority library rather simply a few weeks on the job training or a Diploma in Tourism in order to work in the ticket office/gift shop of a heritage site is beyond me.

I understand this.
It doesn't matter though.
That article is rubbish and is using statistics to compare apples and oranges. It is designed to create the kind of reaction it did on here. Can't wait for the indo's version
Likewise my argument is nonsense but I could argue the point all day long and use stats to back it up.

SpodoKamodo

EF wrote: »

That's true but with approaching 2 million workers earning under 60,000 the basic point was that average of total private sector pay is lower because of the large numbers earning a low wage. A sample of 300,000 private sector workers could well show a similar average wage to the current public sector average wage.

Statistically, a sample should be unbiased, and I would be sure that the people calculating the figures at the CSO would have strived to ensure that their samples were indicative of the population. That is basic statistics.

ParkRunner

SpodoKamodo wrote: »

Statistically, a sample should be unbiased, and I would be sure that the people calculating the figures at the CSO would have strived to ensure that their samples were indicative of the population. That is basic statistics.

I have no doubt that that is the case, but the average public sector wage of approx 300,000 workers is consistently measured against the average private sector wage which is taken from a much larger group of workers and basic statistics show that the private sector is top heavy with low paid unskilled workers.

zootroid

aoboa wrote: »

Exactly - the average wage isn't comparable.

I'd bet it would suddenly become comparable if average earnings in the private sector were greater than the public sector. The unions would be up in arms

aoboa

zootroid wrote: »

I'd bet it would suddenly become comparable if average earnings in the private sector were greater than the public sector. The unions would be up in arms

What does the average private sector nurse earn and what does the average public sector nurse earn?
Which earns more?

Head The Wall

Welease wrote: »

The PrS include retail, restaurants and a plethora of other positions that would generally not require a 3rd level education.

In order to understand the equality of compensation, you need to look at the comparative pay for similar qualified positions. In that respect the often quoted (I'll try and dig up a link, but I can neither vouch for or refute the correctness), is that the ESRI (iirc) put PS pay at a 23% premium over PrS pay (not including pension which recent studies suggest adding another 25-30%)..

The Public sector also includes, street sweepers, traffic wardens, clerical officers, cleaners, porters etc that don't require qualifications either.

ParkRunner

Head The Wall wrote: »

The Public sector also includes, street sweepers, traffic wardens, clerical officers, cleaners, porters etc that don't require qualifications either.

From my experience at least cleaners in particular who work in the public sector are generally hired on contract from the private sector.

aoboa

Head The Wall wrote: »

The Public sector also includes, street sweepers, traffic wardens, clerical officers, cleaners, porters etc that don't require qualifications either.

Doesn't matter. The percentages on the first page of this thread are all that matters. The public sevice has a higher percentage of qualified people than the private sector. Therefore they deserve a higher average wage :eek:

Head The Wall

EF wrote: »

I have no doubt that that is the case, but the average public sector wage of approx 300,000 workers is consistently measured against the average private sector wage which is taken from a much larger group of workers and basic statistics show that the private sector is top heavy with low paid unskilled workers.

I had the CSO here on Monday, should have picked his brain when he was here. I have been surveyed for the last 18 months, second time doing it, different address previously.

I would like to know how many households do they survey and what happens if they survey 1000 houses and 88% of them are private sector. Public sector make up around 33% of the workforce so do they have to keep going until they get a comparable percentage of private Vs Public houses to balance the stats or do they just publish what they get. People are picked at random so I don't see how they could balance it out exactly.

Flex

aoboa wrote: »

Doesn't matter. The percentages on the first page of this thread are all that matters. The public sevice has a higher percentage of qualified people than the private sector. Therefore they deserve a higher average wage :eek:

Do you think if two people are doing the same type of work and work the same hours, have the same number of years experience and same qualifications, etc. that one of those workers should be paid ~20% more than the other because he works at a different address on the same street?

Head The Wall

aoboa wrote: »

Doesn't matter. The percentages on the first page of this thread are all that matters. The public sevice has a higher percentage of qualified people than the private sector. Therefore they deserve a higher average wage :eek:

We need stats on what percentage of these qualifications are actually relevant for the job.

Is the 59% of staff qualified on record anywhere and would there be a breakdown of their roles e.g admin, sweepers, doctors, engineers etc

zootroid

aoboa wrote: »

What does the average private sector nurse earn and what does the average public sector nurse earn?
Which earns more?

Sorry, are you actually looking for me to provide figures?

I was just making an observation about the behaviour of unions. Remember benchmarking?

aoboa

Flex wrote: »

Do you think if two people are doing the same type of work and work the same hours, have the same number of years experience and same qualifications, etc. that one of those workers should be paid ~20% more than the other because he works at a different address on the same street?

How do you know they are? Show me the figures.

ParkRunner

Head The Wall wrote: »

I had the CSO here on Monday, should have picked his brain when he was here. I have been surveyed for the last 18 months, second time doing it, different address previously.

I would like to know how many households do they survey and what happens if they survey 1000 houses and 88% of them are private sector. Public sector make up around 33% of the workforce so do they have to keep going until they get a comparable percentage of private Vs Public houses to balance the stats or do they just publish what they get. People are picked at random so I don't see how they could balance it out exactly.

I wouldn't imagine the CSO need to survey public sector workers because the necessary statistics can be easily pulled from the HR sections of the various Departments.

All the payscales, length of service, hours of work, deductions etc. are readily available and a spreadsheet does the rest.

Flex

aoboa wrote: »

How do you know they are? Show me the figures.

Sure, from the ESRI. It doesnt simply look at the average industrial wage (taken to represent the private sector) against the average public sector wage, it make comparisons between the public sector and their private sector counterparts against whom theyre meant to be benchmarked against

http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=2691

aoboa

Flex wrote: »

Sure, from the ESRI. It doesnt simply look at the average industrial wage (taken to represent the private sector) against the average public sector wage, it make comparisons between the public sector and their private sector counterparts against whom theyre meant to be benchmarked against

http://www.esri.ie/publications/latest_publications/view/index.xml?id=2691

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65538223&postcount=39

Flex

aoboa wrote: »

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=65538223&postcount=39

Youve asked for sources to back up my claim, Ive provided them.