Official figures put Irish public sector pay 78% more than UK public sector pay

Japer

Newly released government figures show that the average Irish public sector pay is currently € 47061 per year
( source : the Irish government official statistics department http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf
On page 7 it states "public sector average weekly earnings Q3 ( July Aug Sept ) 2010 to be € 902.54, which is equivalent to 47061 per annum.

At current exchange rate of 0.8486 ( www.davy.ie ), this converts to £ 39936 sterling.

According to the front page article in the Sunday Times ( which I have no connection with )
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6974029.ece


In the UK "Figures published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that average annual earnings of public sector workers rose to £22,405 last year" . They are complaining about that and think the average UK public sector worker is paid too much ! Read the whole article, its very interesting.

To put things in perspective ( it comes as no great surprise to those of us who may have a number of relatives or close friends employed in the public services in both jurisdictions ), average public sector pay in Ireland is 178% of average public sector pay in our nearest neighbour, and one we share a border with. In other words, average UK public sector pay is only 56% of average Irish public sector pay. Ireland is just a little island with a population comparable to greater Manchester. Are our absurd levels of public sector pay justifiable or sustainable, given the IMF / EU ( inc the UK ) are bailing us out ?

ei.sdraob

cue "averages are meaningless" posts

and then lets all go back to resting our heads in our sand buckets

Permabear

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OhNoYouDidn't

You are comparing pay across the entire Irish public sector which includes semi states to the British one that doesn't. So your sample set is flawed immediatly.

Also, you are not factoring in the cost of living being much higher in Ireland.

In short, you just wasted bandwith on something a leaving cert economics student would be failed on.

OhNoYouDidn't

donegalfella wrote: »

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Beat me to it by seconds...

But it cannot be ignored in this debate. Earnings in every sector in Ireland are higher than Britain.

ei.sdraob

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

In short, you just wasted bandwith on something a leaving cert economics student would be failed on.

I think leaving cert economics students are also aware that higher prices result up higher cost in a classic wage<>price inflation spiral

Quazzie

Is it just a coincidence that the exchange is really in favour of this argument at the moment or did the shítbricks who compiled this survey hold off on the information until on purpose till the exchange rate made it seem all the worse.

Laminations

More accurately this thread again suggests that some people (possibly many) in the PS are overpaid compared to the UK. Not really news is it? Want to tell us next (and again) the % that our minimum wage is above UK minimum wage?

I'll say again that I work in both private and public and get a 33% premium for my private sector work. You can't broad brush the pay issues in the PS no matter how many times people try. There are problems yes, you need to be more surgical with your knife

Permabear

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Formosa

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

You are comparing pay across the entire Irish public sector which includes semi states to the British one that doesn't. So your sample set is flawed immediatly.

Also, you are not factoring in the cost of living being much higher in Ireland.

In short, you just wasted bandwith on something a leaving cert economics student would be failed on.

Ah get back to work & stop dossing.

irishh_bob

donegalfella wrote: »

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cost of living in canada is higher than in the usa yet wages tend to be higher in america , no golden rule that says wages should be propoortionate to cost of living

OhNoYouDidn't

donegalfella wrote: »

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Only if you list the comparable pay averages for engineers, IT consultants, barristers, bankers and other private sector workers....

We earn more than the Brits. This is not news.

irishh_bob

donegalfella wrote: »

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apparently , its impossible to pay a nurse too much in ireland :rolleyes:

Essexboy

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Only if you list the comparable pay averages for engineers, IT consultants, barristers, bankers and other private sector workers....

We earn more than the Brits. This is not news.

You are paid more than the Brits: whether you earn it is debatable.

martian1980

Another day, another Japer PS thread.

ei.sdraob

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

Only if you list the comparable pay averages for engineers, IT consultants, barristers, bankers and other private sector workers....

those people dont get paid by the taxpayer (well shouldn't be but of course there are exceptions)

OhNoYouDidn't

ei.sdraob wrote: »

those people dont get paid by the taxpayer (well shouldn't be but of course there are exceptions)

So what?

You cannot do an international wage comparison on one sector of the economy without factoring in cost of living. It would be very interesting to do the same excercise on the average private sector wage too - but that wouldn't fit into the assinine public sector bash, would it?

Laminations

Let's compare other differences with the UK and use those differences to make the point that we should change to be like them

Higher tax rate: Ireland-41%, UK-50%
corpo tax rate: Ireland-12.5%, UK-21-28%
VAT: Ireland-22%, UK-20%

Now based on your case that the UK have it right, where are the threads arguing we should tax the rich more and tax companies more and reduce VAT?? The commie forum?

You can't just pick the British stats that suit your argument and ignore all others

Twin-go

donegalfella wrote: »

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May be so but is it 78% less expensive to live in the UK?

OhNoYouDidn't

Twin-go wrote: »

May be so but is it 78% less expensive to live in the UK?

The 78% figure is arse. It includes comaratively well paid semi state workers in Ireland like ESB engineers or train drivers, while ignores them in the British statistic.

But it certainly is 78% cheaper in parts of Britain. The Scottish government are insisting on a minimum charge of 45p for an alcoholic drink. Thats 10% of what we pay, and the implication is that some bars were charging less for a pint.

Twin-go

Laminations wrote: »

Let's compare other differences with the UK and use those differences to make the point that we should change to be like them

Higher tax rate: Ireland-41%, UK-50%
corpo tax rate: Ireland-12.5%, UK-21-28%
VAT: Ireland-22%, UK-20%

Now based on your case that the UK have it right, where are the threads arguing we should tax the rich more and tax companies more and reduce VAT?? The commie forum?

You can't just pick the British stats that suit your argument and ignore all others

So the UK have for the most part have higher tax intake but pay their PS less.

I'm no economist but sounds like that would mean more money for health, education, infrastructure and other things that the people of the country can actually use.....

Laminations

Twin-go wrote: »

May be so but is it 78% less expensive to live in the UK?

Well London is more expensive but if you compare Dublin to a UK city of comparable size then Dublin ranks far higher

http://www.finfacts.ie/costofliving.htm

Dublin ranks 42
From the survey, London (rank 17) is the UK's most expensive city, followed by Aberdeen (149), Glasgow (155), and Birmingham (158).


And for those who love to compare us with northern ireland, Belfast (182) is ranked as the UK's least expensive city.

martian1980

Laminations wrote: »

Let's compareother differences with the UK and use those differences to make the point that we should change to be like them

Higher tax rate: Ireland-41%, UK-50%
corpo tax rate: Ireland-12.5%, UK-21-28%
VAT: Ireland-22%, UK-20%

Now based on your case that the UK have it right, where are the threads arguing we should tax the rich more and tax companies more and reduce VAT?? The commie forum?

You can't just pick the British stats that suit your argument and ignore all others

ah lads, don't be criticising the stats - each of these threads adds a new layer of insight to a facinating debate. here's a synopsis:

1 - find some stat that has probably been cherry-picked by the indo and not directly comparable and make a thread of it
2 - pitch in with a few stock replies. some examples:
"sack the lot of them!!!"
"wasters"
"I pay your wages"
benchmarking ... beards ... bertie ...
3 - after around 200 posts, start another thread allowing a slightly different angle on the first 10 posts before going to step 2 again

irishh_bob

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

The 78% figure is arse. It includes comaratively well paid semi state workers in Ireland like ESB engineers or train drivers, while ignores them in the British statistic.

But it certainly is 78% cheaper in parts of Britain. The Scottish government are insisting on a minimum charge of 45p for an alcoholic drink. Thats 10% of what we pay, and the implication is that some bars were charging less for a pint.

you havent a clue if you think its 78% cheaper in parts of the uk than ireland , i was in scotland and cumbria in september and didnt find it any cheaper , my sister lives in brighton and says its more expensive than dublin let alone ireland

Laminations

irishh_bob wrote: »

you havent a clue if you think its 78% cheaper in parts of the uk than ireland , i was in scotland and cumbria in september and didnt find it any cheaper , my sister lives in brighton and says its more expensive than dublin let alone ireland

My sister lives in Brighton and says it's way cheaper - see how that works? You were working in the exchange rate too yeah?

Japer

Domo-kun wrote: »

Is it just a coincidence that the exchange is really in favour of this argument at the moment or did the shítbricks who compiled this survey hold off on the information until on purpose till the exchange rate made it seem all the worse.

Actually the euro was closer to parity with sterling until recent months.... the exchange rate is 0.85 now ( in round figures )...it was 0.90 and 0.95 etc. Also, as the cso stats ( unsurprisingly ) show, our public sector workers were higher paid in Ireland before the latest p.s. wage cuts.

These 2 facts combined show that Irish public servants a year or two were probably paid double what UK public servants were paid, instead of just 78% more, so looking positively at it we are probably heading in the right direction now anyway. Too little change too late perhaps , when the IMF is here ?

Japer

irishh_bob wrote: »

i was in scotland and cumbria in september and didnt find it any cheaper , my sister lives in brighton and says its more expensive than dublin let alone ireland

+1. Certainly the average public servant in the UK ( who gets 22.5k stg ) does not have as high standard of living as the Irish government gives the average public servant in Ireland.( who gets the equivalent of 40k stg in round figures ). The dogs in the street know that.

martian1980

Japer wrote: »

+1. Certainly the average public servant in the UK ( who gets 22.5k stg ) does not have as high standard of living as the Irish government gives the average public servant in Ireland.( who gets the equivalent of 40k stg in round figures ). The dogs in the street know that.

start a lobby group about it then. March on the dáil. do a letter writing campaign. or fester on boards regurgitating articles.

ei.sdraob

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

So what?

You cannot do an international wage comparison on one sector of the economy without factoring in cost of living.

Once again wages and cost of living are related

Economics 101

Nijmegen

Doing a quick google search throws up this from an accounting firm that helps people moving from the UK to Ireland. It quotes the cost of living difference at 28%.

That the UK doesn't count its train drivers and electricity workers among public service workers is another debate. They're privatised in the UK. If we want nationalised everything in Ireland, we pay for it.

Fact is, not many public sector pay comparisons show up favourably for the PS. That (to me) is an argument to cut at the top, not the bottom, by the by. But clearly the averages are dragged up by large numbers of people on large salaries.

jester77

Maybe it's the British PS workers that are being paid too little :rolleyes:

These debates are tiresome, every economy is different. Just by looking at Irelands accounts it doesn't take a genius to see that we are spending more than we are earning. If Ireland were a company they would be out of business. Something has to change and change quick!

ei.sdraob

jester77 wrote: »

Maybe it's the British PS workers that are being paid too little :rolleyes:

I don't see IMF bailing out Britain

martian1980

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I don't see IMF bailing out Britain

their rampant quantitative easing has helped them somewhat ... at least for the short term

ei.sdraob

martian1980 wrote: »

their rampant quantitative easing has helped them somewhat ... at least for the short term

Yeh only if their public servants (and everyone else holding pounds) realised that they lost something 20% of their income in last few years due to devaluation

thats why I think we need a dual currency system here, one for the real economy one for the wasters

Permabear

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martian1980

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Yeh only if their public servants (and everyone else holding pounds) realised that they lost something 20% of their income in last few years due to devaluation

thats why I think we need a dual currency system here, one for the real economy one for the wasters

which one would you use?

ei.sdraob

martian1980 wrote: »

which one would you use?

I already have to use dollars, pounds and euros
which is what my company exports in

Neither do I get paid for by the taxpayer so no Nua Punts for me , if anything they tax me extra more for bothering to run a company hey it be nice if my taxes are also in Nua Punts

jester77

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I don't see IMF bailing out Britain

It's just that there are so many of these private vs public threads that have statistics twisted to suit their arguments. I'm not denying that the Irish PS is overpaid, it very much is in certain sectors.

Haven't the IMF already said that the PS have 9 months to sort themselves out or they will do it? I honestly can't see them getting their act together in that time, I'll be surprised if they are even able to compile the monthly reports that have been requested!

ei.sdraob

jester77 wrote: »

It's just that there are so many of these private vs public threads that have statistics twisted to suit their arguments. I'm not denying that the Irish PS is overpaid, it very much is in certain sectors.

Haven't the IMF already said that the PS have 9 months to sort themselves out or they will do it? I honestly can't see them getting their act together in that time, I'll be surprised if they are even able to compile the monthly reports that have been requested!

Well the question remains whether the promised changes will materialize i am not holding my breath, I better invest in a popcorn maker for the upcoming IMF/unions bitch fight

martian1980

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I already have to use dollars, pounds and euros
which is what my company exports in

Neither do I get paid for by the taxpayer so no Nua Punts for me , if anything they tax me extra more for bothering to run a company hey it be nice if my taxes are also in Nua Punts

by "export", do you mean post informed economic comment on the internet?

ei.sdraob

martian1980 wrote: »

by "export", do you mean post informed economic comment on the internet?

ah the joy of working from home and having the ability to program scripts to do your bidding

irishh_bob

Japer wrote: »

+1. Certainly the average public servant in the UK ( who gets 22.5k stg ) does not have as high standard of living as the Irish government gives the average public servant in Ireland.( who gets the equivalent of 40k stg in round figures ). The dogs in the street know that.

my cousin ( nurse in wales ) told me in 2008 he was earning 35 k sterling after having been with the hse since 1987 , an irish nurse in 2008 started off on 31 k euro and could expect to average close to 60 k per year eventually , not sure how much they are down since 2008 but they are still way ahead of thier uk counterparts

Riskymove

japer wrote:

]Public sector workers earn 7% more on average than their peers in the private sector

this caught my eye japer......as you have mentioned many times your belief that in other countries the private average is always higher than the public.

He said the higher average pay of public sector workers was partly due to the fact that many cleaning jobs and other low-paid public sector work had been outsourced to the private sector.

this quote also brings us back to our usual 'like-for-like' issue


I also note there was no direct link to the stats but I looked around the relevant site of the ONS and discovered that sectors such as finance, construction, manufacturing etc all have higher average earnings than the public sector average, only services and retail have lower (our usual skewing argument once more)

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/hub/index.html

Japer

Riskymove wrote: »

as you have mentioned many times your belief that in other countries the private average is always higher than the public.

I never said " many times " the " private average is always higher than the public." Please show me where I said that. In most countries private sector pay is usually higher than public sector pay, as public sector employees usually have better pensions, more security etc.
In the UK , under the labour government which was in power for so long, public sector numbers and salaries increased during that term. The difference betwen the 2 sectors there has doubled since the recession began. It used to be the case private sector workers were paid slightly more than public sector workers.

Anyway, this thread is not about private sector pay compared to public sector pay : it is about average Irish public sector pay being 78% more than average UK public sector pay

Or, to put it another way, average UK public sector pay is only 56% of average Irish public sector pay.

OhNoYouDidn't

Japer wrote: »

I Anyway, this thread is not about private sector pay compared to public sector pay : it is about average Irish public sector pay being 78% more than average UK public sector pay

Or, to put it another way, average UK public sector pay is only 56% of average Irish public sector pay.

But its not. A semi literate chimp can drive a horse and cart through your methodology,

Japer

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

But its not. A semi literate chimp can drive a horse and cart through your methodology,

What do you not agree with ....do you dispute the cso figures of average public sector pay - which are in black and white in their report - or the UK figures of average public sector pay there? Do not forget its relatively easy for statisticians to find out average public sector pay in either country, as the government pays the wages. You could argue about small differences of 1 or 2%....but we are talking about p.s. pay here in the Republic of Ireland being nearly double ....well, 78% more ! As one public sector worker in UK said, there they go in caravans on their holidays, here our public servants go to spa hotels + holiday homes on their holidays. Good on ye, Bertie Ahern, ye done for the p.s. what Charlie done for the oap's.

OhNoYouDidn't

Japer wrote: »

What do you not agree with ....do you dispute the cso figures of average public sector pay - which are in black and white in their report - or the UK figures of average public sector pay there? Do not forget its relatively easy for statisticians to find out average public sector pay in either country, as the government pays the wages. You could argue about small differences of 1 or 2%....but we are talking about p.s. pay here in the Republic of Ireland being nearly double ....well, 78% more ! As one public sector worker in UK said, there they go in caravans on their holidays, here our public servants go to spa hotels + holiday homes on their holidays. Good on ye, Bertie Ahern, ye done for the p.s. what Charlie done for the oap's.

The Irish public sector is not the same as the British public sector. You either have to exclude Irish utilities such as electricity, gas and public transport or include the privatised British versions.

You have failed at the first hurdle - your sample set.

But I'm not as it happens disputing that Irish PS workers are better paid than their British equivalent. I am saying EVERYONE in Ireland is better paid than their British equivalent. So bleedin what?

professore

Nijmegen wrote: »

Doing a quick google search throws up this from an accounting firm that helps people moving from the UK to Ireland. It quotes the cost of living difference at 28%.

That the UK doesn't count its train drivers and electricity workers among public service workers is another debate. They're privatised in the UK. If we want nationalised everything in Ireland, we pay for it.

Fact is, not many public sector pay comparisons show up favourably for the PS. That (to me) is an argument to cut at the top, not the bottom, by the by. But clearly the averages are dragged up by large numbers of people on large salaries.

Do you realise the abbreviation for Public Sector is the same as for Private Sector ? So your second last sentence makes no sense.

Japer

OhNoYouDidn't wrote: »

I am saying EVERYONE in Ireland is better paid than their British equivalent. So bleedin what?

The Irish government has not got the money to continue paying our public sector nearly double ( 78% more ) than the UK government ( which is after lending us billions so our govt cheques will not bounce ) is paying theirs. There are a G7 country which has economy of scale, we are borrowing from moneylenders to pay our public sector workers neary double what they get across the border + in the rest of the UK.

OhNoYouDidn't

Japer wrote: »

The Irish government has not got the money to continue paying our public sector nearly double ( 78% more ) than the UK government ( which is after lending us billions so our govt cheques will not bounce ) is paying theirs. There are a G7 country which has economy of scale, we are borrowing from moneylenders to pay our public sector workers neary double what they get across the border + in the rest of the UK.

But we aren't.

Your substantive argument about the PS wage bill is worth discussing. But your figures are horseshít and fatally weaken your position.

Twin-go

Ireland cannot afford to pay out Public Sector, simple.

The Solutions are:

• Cut pay
• Cut Numbers
• Cut Both

The above is what a Private company would do if it couldn't afford to pay its workers.

What solution do the Public Sector defenders on here propose is done about the situation?