How much do you think I should get paid?

splendid101

I'm a low grade civil servant - Clerical Officer.

How much do you think I should get paid?

Listening to the radio and looking at threads here an elsewhere, many people seem to have strong opinions on how much civil servants and public service employees should be paid. So I'm looking for opinions on what my net, take home pay should be.

Feel free to tell me what you get as well.

I work 34 hours and 45 minutes a week (on average [as I'm on flexi time]).

Thanks in advance,

Alan

sollar

50k min

Joe10000

For that type of role in the private sector you would be taking home about 450 a week.

jam_mac_jam

24k

WalterMitty

15 eur an hour max gross. in many parts of europe highly skilled workers dont get near that amount and clerical officers arent higly skilled. Also no pension levy as low level public servants think the pension isnt worth it and you can just get the state pension and no DB pension.

RichardAnd

For an admin clerical position, 20-24 k a year max. That's fair.

sarumite

Its not so much what I think you should get paid, but what the current market dicates you should be paid. The government should be geting the same work done for the same prices a private sector company gets it done for. Without knowing more details about your contract (benefits etc) and roles and resposibilites and without knowing much about the your equivalent in the private sector I don't think its a question that I can answer.

Tim Robbins

splendid101 wrote: »

I'm a low grade civil servant - Clerical Officer.

How much do you think I should get paid?

Listening to the radio and looking at threads here an elsewhere, many people seem to have strong opinions on how much civil servants and public service employees should be paid. So I'm looking for opinions on what my net, take home pay should be.

Feel free to tell me what you get as well.

I work 34 hours and 45 minutes a week (on average [as I'm on flexi time]).

Thanks in advance,

Alan

Jaysus - you're brave.

I think you need to be clear if you are including defined pension or not? Defined benefit is worth about another 30% of your salary.

You also need to include other benefits you get with your package. VHI is worth a grand. Every day off above 20 also has to be considered.

I would say 37.5 hours is a min working week for most jobs.

For low grade clerical officer, I'm guessing anything between 12 and 15 euro an hour for a basic package. Anyway, semi state are being paid way more than civil service. There the ones people should be focussing attention on now.

amen

12 and 15 euro an hour

yikes 1.5 - 2 times the minimum wage for

low grade civil servant

ei.sdraob

How much do your counterparts in Germany earn?
Until the wages are at same level the Germans will constantly keep pointing at public wages here when it comes to talking about bailouts or rate reductions.
Yes I know the cost of living is different, but tell that to the Germans etc who are now your paymasters.

GSF

you dont say whether you are any good at your job? a private company is generally willing to pay people 5-10% more to retain good performers and will actively manage out underperformers.

Head The Wall

Joe10000 wrote: »

For that type of role in the private sector you would be taking home about 450 a week.

You reckon 28K is the right wage for a clerical officer, that's madness. I reckon E10 an hour is more than enough which would be a starting salary of 18k this should rise to a max of 23K (27% increase). The current situation where they start at 22K and goes to 34K is ridiculous especially considering they have to do nothing to go up the scale


The clerical officer grade should reflect the requirements which if I remember correctly don't even require a leaving cert so they are effectively saying an uneducated person is suitable for the job. They should be paid wages commensurate with the skillset required and the fact that this person has other qualifications should be irrelevant, if they are good enough they should be able to prove it through their work and gain promotion that way. Let them get jobs elsewhere if they don't think they are getting paid enough.

Just like happens in the private sector

Johnnio13

34.45hrs a week and flexi time...??
Firstly the working week for everyone I know gainfully employed is between 37.5 and 39hrs and no flex time. So you are not even working a full week.
Low grade clerical in private would be on 16.5 - 19k max.
But with the possible perks involved in civil service private can't match that.

dvpower

No one here could possibly tell you with any accuracy how much you should get paid.
It should depend on the work you actually do and your terms and conditions, and it should be negotiated with your management.
The idea that thousands upon thousands of workers who often do vastly different jobs all earn the same amount and who have no good way of getting extra reward for better performance seems very old fashioned.

dvpower

sollar wrote: »

50k min

Maybe in our next currency.:rolleyes:

Tim Robbins

amen wrote: »

yikes 1.5 - 2 times the minimum wage for

Actually when you put it like that... I haven't much of a clue.

Head The Wall

Tim Robbins wrote: »

Actually when you put it like that... I haven't much of a clue.

If only the PS workers realised how much they got paid to shuffle papers

Balmed Out

If this is a clerical position requiring no qualification that takes more then a year to do (beyond the leaving cert) then id think 10 / 11 euros. 12 if youre considered very very good at it.

How much are you paid?

Cosmo Kramer

I work as a professional for a local authority in the UK.

Our clerical staff start off on £12k (€14k) per year pre tax. They would pay a fairly small amount of tax on that. Their role would be equivalent to a Grade III Clerical Officer in an Irish local authority.

If they get promoted through the grades and reach their highest level possible without becoming managers/supervisors of any form they can get up to £18k (€21k). In work responsibility terms this would be the equivalent of the top of the Grade III scale in an Irish local authority, however in the UK the staff would have to earn promotion to achieve this, rather than simply wait about long enough.

The cost of living is lower here, but that will change over time as the Irish economy continues to correct itself. I see no reason why within two to three years all Grade III Clerical Officers in the Irish public service should not be paid along these lines to match their counterparts abroad. I would suggest a scale of €16k - €23k gross to allow for higher taxation in Ireland. I would be curious to know how this compares to what Irish PS Clerical Officers are currently being paid.

I don't think anything more than that can be considered sustainable for clerical staff from now on. There has to be a painful reality check and it still doesn't seem to have taken place.

Head The Wall

Currently employed clerical officers started on 22k and could get up to 34k, this was reduced by 10% in the last budget.

Their pensions were also based on their final salary even though they didn't contribute relative to the final salary pension during their career and they could buy years to bring their pension up to a full pension. This was also changed in the last budget where the pension is now based on the average salary throughout their career.


The changes in the last budget have no affect on the current staff so are a waste of time bearing in mind there is a recruitment embargo in place and we have had numerous reports stating there are thousands of excess unneeded clerical officers

Cosmo Kramer

There's a long way to go then. I have sympathy for those who are being paid those wages and have bought property etc. based on a 'guaranteed' income, but this will have to stop eventually and there will have to be some more pain for people who have essentially done nothing wrong. As someone said earlier Europe pay the wages now and it is understandable that they will not stand for this level of reimbursement for secretarial work while the debts mount.

Pensions do still operate on a final salary scheme here - not sure how much longer that will last for though. I certainly don't expect to be retiring on a final salary scheme.

splendid101

Also no pension levy as low level public servants think the pension isnt worth it and you can just get the state pension and no DB pension.

We pay a pension levy and a pension contribution. Are you saying we should pay neither and get no pension, or just not the levy and still get the pension? And are you saying it shouldn't be mandatory as it currently is or we shouldn't be allowed get it at all? Do you think only higher grandes should be eligible for the pension?

in many parts of europe highly skilled workers dont get near that amount

In any parts of Europe rents aren't as high, property purchase prices aren't as high, health care costs aren't as high, transport costs aren't as high, food costs aren't as high, recreation costs aren't as high, etc., etc., etc. I remember buying a frozen pizza for €0.25 in Berlin a few years ago, and a delicious, cooked, nine-inch pizza from a take away in Dusseldorf for €2. The discrepency has probably changed (in our favour) since then but you can hopefully see where I'm going with this - that's about 10% of Irish prices. I should actually go into an Aldi next time I'm on the continent and do a scintific comparision. I think comparisions to wages in other countries have little to no relevance (I am aware that you said I should get more than some workers in Europe).

For an admin clerical position, 20-24 k a year max. That's fair.

That's a pretty big range there. What do you reckon I should get transferred into my bank every Friday?

Its not so much what I think you should get paid, but what the current market dicates you should be paid. The government should be geting the same work done for the same prices a private sector company gets it done for. Without knowing more details about your contract (benefits etc) and roles and resposibilites and without knowing much about the your equivalent in the private sector I don't think its a question that I can answer.

My work is fairly unchallenging, I don't make any decisions on policies and the like. It's administrative work - photocopying, adapting and printing form letters, we alternate doing reception roughly once every two weeks. Not sure what else to tell you. I'm not going to say what department I'm in.

I get 22 holidays a year. We get an unofficial half day on Christmas Eve. I don't know about other sections/departments but I'd guess most get this. Our highest graded officers stays behind on Christmas Day to answer any phone calls.

I get flexi time - while this is definitely an advantage of the job, I don't think this costs anyone anything. It saves money and makes people more efficient. I can get into this more if people disagree.

I suppose I have a job for life at the moment anyway - I suppose that is a big benefit.

I have a pension. I pay roughly (don't have my pay slip here) 6% of my weekly wage and in 37 years, everything going to plan, I should be getting half my average wage over the 40 years once I retire.

Not sure what other benefits I need to mention. Anything else you can think of, just ask. See my note below re: union benefits.

Jaysus - you're brave.

Why?

I think you need to be clear if you are including defined pension or not? Defined benefit is worth about another 30% of your salary.

See above. What do you mean by defined? And what you're saying is that if my pension was taken away, you'd be happy for me to get 30% more? Or a wage of 30% more would be fair (might be a better way of saying it)?

You also need to include other benefits you get with your package. VHI is worth a grand. Every day off above 20 also has to be considered.

No health care. Some dental and optical benefits through the union which costs 1% of my wages.

I would say 37.5 hours is a min working week for most jobs.

So I'm working 2.75 hours less than that. Please note that this doesn't include lunches. Can't remember from my private sectors days if your figure does or not.

How much do your counterparts in Germany earn?
Until the wages are at same level the Germans will constantly keep pointing at public wages here when it comes to talking about bailouts or rate reductions.
Yes I know the cost of living is different, but tell that to the Germans etc who are now your paymasters.

See my note above.

By "the Germans", do you actually mean the IMF, the ECB and European Commission?

I don't think they just think, "we want wages the same as someone in Munich". It's more complicated than that.

you dont say whether you are any good at your job? a private company is generally willing to pay people 5-10% more to retain good performers and will actively manage out underperformers.

Well, as you know, the civil service doesn't work like that. Let's just say for the sake of this discussion that I'm "grand" at my job. Not sh*t, but not outstanding either.

In reality though, I am of course, absolutely awesome at photocopying paper!


Thanks very much for all the replies so far. I do plan on saying how much I get, by the way. I thought I'd mentioned that in my post last night . I just want a couple of more responses beforehand - I don't want to colour people's responses by letting them know what I do get.

PeakOutput

i wouldn't begrudge you 12.50 an hour although you should probably be far closer to the minimum wage considering the work you are doing

-Chris-

Based on those responsibilities and hours, I'd pay €22k, and expect to get someone good for that money.

sarumite

http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1102845

Seems to be a job advertised thats paying €23-25k for an admin role which looks like they would have some responsibilities and also need to have a 3rd level qualification. Assuming a low grade CO doesn't have either, I would assume a they should be paid less than this, how much less is up for discussion.

kelko1916

splendid101 wrote: »

We pay a pension levy and a pension contribution. Are you saying we should pay neither and get no pension, or just not the levy and still get the pension? And are you saying it shouldn't be mandatory as it currently is or we shouldn't be allowed get it at all? Do you think only higher grandes should be eligible for the pension?



In any parts of Europe rents aren't as high, property purchase prices aren't as high, health care costs aren't as high, transport costs aren't as high, food costs aren't as high, recreation costs aren't as high, etc., etc., etc. I remember buying a frozen pizza for €0.25 in Berlin a few years ago, and a delicious, cooked, nine-inch pizza from a take away in Dusseldorf for €2. The discrepency has probably changed (in our favour) since then but you can hopefully see where I'm going with this - that's about 10% of Irish prices. I should actually go into an Aldi next time I'm on the continent and do a scintific comparision. I think comparisions to wages in other countries have little to no relevance (I am aware that you said I should get more than some workers in Europe).



That's a pretty big range there. What do you reckon I should get transferred into my bank every Friday?





My work is fairly unchallenging, I don't make any decisions on policies and the like. It's administrative work - photocopying, adapting and printing form letters, we alternate doing reception roughly once every two weeks. Not sure what else to tell you. I'm not going to say what department I'm in.

I get 22 holidays a year. We get an unofficial half day on Christmas Eve. I don't know about other sections/departments but I'd guess most get this. Our highest graded officers stays behind on Christmas Day to answer any phone calls.

I get flexi time - while this is definitely an advantage of the job, I don't think this costs anyone anything. It saves money and makes people more efficient. I can get into this more if people disagree.

I suppose I have a job for life at the moment anyway - I suppose that is a big benefit.

I have a pension. I pay roughly (don't have my pay slip here) 6% of my weekly wage and in 37 years, everything going to plan, I should be getting half my average wage over the 40 years once I retire.

Not sure what other benefits I need to mention. Anything else you can think of, just ask. See my note below re: union benefits.



Why?



See above. What do you mean by defined? And what you're saying is that if my pension was taken away, you'd be happy for me to get 30% more? Or a wage of 30% more would be fair (might be a better way of saying it)?



No health care. Some dental and optical benefits through the union which costs 1% of my wages.



So I'm working 2.75 hours less than that. Please note that this doesn't include lunches. Can't remember from my private sectors days if your figure does or not.



See my note above.

By "the Germans", do you actually mean the IMF, the ECB and European Commission?

I don't think they just think, "we want wages the same as someone in Munich". It's more complicated than that.



Well, as you know, the civil service doesn't work like that. Let's just say for the sake of this discussion that I'm "grand" at my job. Not sh*t, but not outstanding either.

In reality though, I am of course, absolutely awesome at photocopying paper!


Thanks very much for all the replies so far. I do plan on saying how much I get, by the way. I thought I'd mentioned that in my post last night . I just want a couple of more responses beforehand - I don't want to colour people's responses by letting them know what I do get.

In any parts of Europe rents aren't as high, property purchase prices aren't as high, health care costs aren't as high, transport costs aren't as high, food costs aren't as high, recreation costs aren't as high, etc., etc., etc. I remember buying a frozen pizza for €0.25 in Berlin a few years ago, and a delicious, cooked, nine-inch pizza from a take away in Dusseldorf for €2. The discrepency has probably changed (in our favour) since then but you can hopefully see where I'm going with this - that's about 10% of Irish prices. I should actually go into an Aldi next time I'm on the continent and do a scintific comparision. I think comparisions to wages in other countries have little to no relevance (I am aware that you said I should get more than some workers in Europe


hello and welcome to ireland 2011 , . it may very well have escaped your attention we all know public /civil servants are extremely busy and preoccupied and dont always know what is going on in real world but as a country we are totally totally broke , we are depending on europe/imf to maintain ourselves , so in a way you are right '' comparison to wages in europe have little or no relevance '' they should be LOWER than the rest of europe , apart from greece , ireland , portugal the rest of europe are not insolvent at least for time been anyway . what the hjell will it take to make irish people realize that the false bubble they lived in for 10 years or so is over , and that public servants , private servants , unemployed , pensioners etc ,should not or cannot continue to be paid multiples of what they would be paid in countries in europe that is lending us money to keep going , to think we are entitled to more is the same delusional model that created this situation in the first place

Head The Wall

Thanks for the response

The Defined Benefit pension means you receive a certain amount (50%) regardless of what you contribute to it yourself. An equivalent self funded Defined Benefit pension in the private sector would cost you around 30% of your wages every year so the PS don't pay the full cost of their pension. I can understand the govt wanting their staff having pensions but ye should have choices in the plans including one to opt out.

Considering your job description E9 an hour sounds about right to me which would give you E304 a week if you're a single person (E16,263 ). You are probably on 30-40% more than that at the moment

I work 39 hours a week as do most in the private sector so you work 11% hours less but receive 12.5% more holidays than the norm.


Sorry if this is not what you want to hear but thats the reality of the situation at the moment and the govt needs to pay what it can afford.

carm

sarumite wrote: »

http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1102845

Seems to be a job advertised thats paying €23-25k for an admin role which looks like they would have some responsibilities and also need to have a 3rd level qualification. Assuming a low grade CO doesn't have either, I would assume a they should be paid less than this, how much less is up for discussion.

+1 I would agree with that. That's the going rate for similar work.

WalterMitty

splendid101 wrote: »

We pay a pension levy and a pension contribution. Are you saying we should pay neither and get no pension, or just not the levy and still get the pension? And are you saying it shouldn't be mandatory as it currently is or we shouldn't be allowed get it at all? Do you think only higher grandes should be eligible for the pension?



In any parts of Europe rents aren't as high, property purchase prices aren't as high, health care costs aren't as high, transport costs aren't as high, food costs aren't as high, recreation costs aren't as high, etc., etc., etc. I remember buying a frozen pizza for €0.25 in Berlin a few years ago, and a delicious, cooked, nine-inch pizza from a take away in Dusseldorf for €2. The discrepency has probably changed (in our favour) since then but you can hopefully see where I'm going with this - that's about 10% of Irish prices. I should actually go into an Aldi next time I'm on the continent and do a scintific comparision. I think comparisions to wages in other countries have little to no relevance (I am aware that you said I should get more than some workers in Europe).



That's a pretty big range there. What do you reckon I should get transferred into my bank every Friday?





My work is fairly unchallenging, I don't make any decisions on policies and the like. It's administrative work - photocopying, adapting and printing form letters, we alternate doing reception roughly once every two weeks. Not sure what else to tell you. I'm not going to say what department I'm in.

I get 22 holidays a year. We get an unofficial half day on Christmas Eve. I don't know about other sections/departments but I'd guess most get this. Our highest graded officers stays behind on Christmas Day to answer any phone calls.

I get flexi time - while this is definitely an advantage of the job, I don't think this costs anyone anything. It saves money and makes people more efficient. I can get into this more if people disagree.

I suppose I have a job for life at the moment anyway - I suppose that is a big benefit.

I have a pension. I pay roughly (don't have my pay slip here) 6% of my weekly wage and in 37 years, everything going to plan, I should be getting half my average wage over the 40 years once I retire.

Not sure what other benefits I need to mention. Anything else you can think of, just ask. See my note below re: union benefits.



Why?



See above. What do you mean by defined? And what you're saying is that if my pension was taken away, you'd be happy for me to get 30% more? Or a wage of 30% more would be fair (might be a better way of saying it)?



No health care. Some dental and optical benefits through the union which costs 1% of my wages.



So I'm working 2.75 hours less than that. Please note that this doesn't include lunches. Can't remember from my private sectors days if your figure does or not.



See my note above.

By "the Germans", do you actually mean the IMF, the ECB and European Commission?

I don't think they just think, "we want wages the same as someone in Munich". It's more complicated than that.



Well, as you know, the civil service doesn't work like that. Let's just say for the sake of this discussion that I'm "grand" at my job. Not sh*t, but not outstanding either.

In reality though, I am of course, absolutely awesome at photocopying paper!


Thanks very much for all the replies so far. I do plan on saying how much I get, by the way. I thought I'd mentioned that in my post last night . I just want a couple of more responses beforehand - I don't want to colour people's responses by letting them know what I do get.

Look , the cost of living is lower in rest europe but not so much as to justify the pay premiums we see in irish public service. To use that logic in the private sector would mean irish exporters saying to foreign customers "pay us more than other EU companies as cost of doing business in ireland is higher" , natually that wouldnt happen and foreign customers would say "sorry ireland ,high cost of doing business there is not our fault so why should we pay for it?". CSO /ESRI/Eurostat stats show our public servants are paid much more than Irish private sector and European public servants for similar/equivalent jobs , now we could get away with paying for that when tax revenues were 50+billion but not when 34billion. Now taxes must rise further but they wont get near the 55billion we spend. Welfare must also fall making the difference between welfare and work greater.

Tea_Bag

Ok I can't take the suspension anymore! how much do you earn OP??

Head The Wall

around 24k, he stated he is 3 years in the system in a post above

littlehedgehog

'I work 39 hours a week as do most in the private sector so you work 11% hours less but receive 12.5% more holidays than the norm.'

Is 20 days average? I get 24 days a year, in the private sector.
I'm on 37.5 hours, not including lunches

Op, I think you should be on about 17k as it would appear a degree isn't required to get the job. Probably 19k if a degree is required to get it. However, the safety of your pension should be offset by a slightly lower wage, if the pensions are going to be the same in years to come this is assuming the cost of living will drop in future, as I think these wages would probably be too low currently.

n97 mini

RichardAnd wrote: »

For an admin clerical position, 20-24 k a year max. That's fair.

That would be about right imo. But it would appear there are too many people in that type of position, so even 20 to 24k is a problem.

mari2222

ps pension is :

1/80 multiplied by years worked (max 40) less Contributory Old Age Pension (if eligible for coap).

So a max of half of final salary, less the COAP (COAP is now €11000 approx)

Therefore with a final salary of €24000, and COAP of €11000, the value of the pension per year is €1000.

The cost of the pension contribution for this is 6.5% salary p.a. : for 40 years at €24000 this would be €62,400 contributed.

The pension levy deductions for 40 years would be approx the same/ in the order of €60,000.

Not all public servants qualify for COAP - if COAP is nil, then the pension could be worth more - up to the max €12000 per annum after 40 years on pay of €24000.

mari2222

2305 euro per month is the 2008 rate for stenographer/typist in Germany in the public sector. Nothing more recent found on the net.

http://laborsta.ilo.org/STP/guest#list

deise blue

stimpson wrote: »

Yeah. It's ludicrous to think that a public servant would ever have to face statutory redundancy.

Couldn't agree more - thank God for Unions & the Croke Park Agreement.

sarumite

deise blue wrote: »

Couldn't agree more - thank God for Unions & the Croke Park Agreement.

I don't think god had anything to do with the CPA, I think you should be thanking the weak FF government of Cowan and co. for that one.

PeakOutput

The more I think about it the more I can't think of a reason why we are hiring people on permanent pensionable contracts for photocopying, printing and typing.

As I said dont begrudge them anything personally but the system is seriously broken

deise blue

sarumite wrote: »

I don't think god had anything to do with the CPA, I think you should be thanking the weak FF government of Cowan and co. for that one.

Still , it was a mutually agreed pact by all involved parties , most importantly the employers and the employees ( via their Unions).

A phoney war seems to currently in place with various politicians trotting out thinly veiled threats to pay if savings aren't made.

This of course is the usual cut & thrust of industrial negotiations but I believe that the current Government are wary of provoking industrial chaos & as such pay cuts will definitely not be on the table anytime soon.

pow wow

Reasonably close to minimum wage. For the most part COs require little experience/skill at point of entry and, certainly in larger departments, they carry out duties with little responsibility or autonomy. As it's essentially an entry level administrative role I don't think it should be much above the minimum wage.

sarumite

deise blue wrote: »

Still , it was a mutually agreed pact by all involved parties , most importantly the employers and the employees ( via their Unions).

A phoney war seems to currently in place with various politicians trotting out thinly veiled threats to pay if savings aren't made.

This of course is the usual cut & thrust of industrial negotiations but I believe that the current Government are wary of provoking industrial chaos & as such pay cuts will definitely not be on the table anytime soon.

I agree it was a mutual agreement....though at the time of the agreement the Irish tax payer lacked a competent government able represent the employers (i.e the tax payer).

Personally I hope we have a government with enough courage to take on the unions if the CPA fails to bring about the savings needed and that it is not a phoney war.

CrackisWhack

Tbh 20 - 24k a year is a fairly low wage, when you consider the costs of goods and services in this country.

I have a science degree with 2 + years experience in my field, and in my last job i was earning 27k a year, with no perks.

Imo there is a huge difference in certain professions, which needs to be tackled aswell.

For example, I recently needed a solicitor and had to pay this guy €500 for 1 hours work, thats a weeks salary for me.

irishh_bob

CrackisWhack wrote: »

Tbh 20 - 24k a year is a fairly low wage, when you consider the costs of goods and services in this country.

I have a science degree with 2 + years experience in my field, and in my last job i was earning 27k a year, with no perks.

Imo there is a huge difference in certain professions, which needs to be tackled aswell.

For example, I recently needed a solicitor and had to pay this guy €500 for 1 hours work, thats a weeks salary for me.

i recently saw a solicitor for 45 mins , cost was 50 euro , i saw two others in the past year and the cost for one hour was 100 euro , i dont know what your solicitor was employed to do but the cost of hiring solicitors has come down significantly , hopefully the medical fraternity will sonn follow suit although doctors tend to view rescessions as only being for little people

pow wow

CrackisWhack wrote: »

Tbh 20 - 24k a year is a fairly low wage, when you consider the costs of goods and services in this country.

I have a science degree with 2 + years experience in my field, and in my last job i was earning 27k a year, with no perks.

There are people with master's degrees and years of experience working as COs alongside people who didn't finish secondary school - the point about clerical jobs in the PS is that qualifications/experience don't matter. As such you might have a genius scanning P45s for 7 hours a day. The wage is low because the skill required is low. If people want to pitch themselves at that level so be it.

WalterMitty

mari2222 wrote: »

2305 euro per month is the 2008 rate for stenographer/typist in Germany in the public sector. Nothing more recent found on the net.

http://laborsta.ilo.org/STP/guest#list

Stenographer is not the same as a clerical officer. And anyway Germany is one of the worlds richest,strongest and most succesful economys and we arent and never really were.
Here's clerical officer jobs in uk.

http://www.jobisjob.co.uk/clerical-officer/jobs 13-17k sterling in uk public sector, £7 an hour in private sector. Here its around 20 euro per hour for clerical work in public sector or 30+k per year .
Teachers in likes of Greece earn less than 20k. Nurses in France around 30k versus 50k here.

donkey balls

OP take one of my many occupations/skillsets and let me know how much I should get paid,I,m a so called professional truck driver at the moment:eek: and if I was to start from scratch again car licence to artic etc I would be looking at an expense of about 3/4k roughly and another grand for Hazchem licence.
Most drivers these days are mini CO as the amount of paperwork/handheld pda that they use is unreal not to mention the deadlines we have to make to get to a customers place.
Then you have the added presure of the company calling you with collections while you try and navigate around towns with a 45ft trailer behind you,Watching about six mirrors at a time while also making sure you dont go over your driving time etc(tacho laws).
What if I told you that there are companies paying professional drivers the min wage and less and look at the responsibilties they have driving around in all sorts of weather,BTW I know what it is like to work in an office enviorment as I.m an ex transport manager.

mari2222

ei.sdraob wrote: »

How much do your counterparts in Germany earn?
Until the wages are at same level the Germans will constantly keep pointing at public wages here when it comes to talking about bailouts or rate reductions.
Yes I know the cost of living is different, but tell that to the Germans etc who are now your paymasters.

I was responding to an earlier contribution which raised a valid point.

the other monthly rates I found for Germany public sector pay 2008 were:

Computer Programmer 3537 euro per month
Central government executive official 5810
Regional government executive official 5227
Local authority executive official 4641
Machine operator 2305
Office clerk 2622

sollar

mari2222 wrote: »

Office clerk 2622

So an office clerk gets 32000 in germany, A CO prob should get the same or there abouts.

What are you earning OP?

Nijmegen

I don't get why folks round here rarely refer to the (private sector) salary surveys that the recruitment companies produce each year. Companies use them as the guide for all recruitment salaries.

Here's one from Manpower for example.

Depending on what exactly you do and your level of experience, from Data Entry Operator (€19-24k) to Administrator 3-5 years experience (€27-30k vs €22-28k for 1-3 years) or accounts admin assistant (€24-26k), it can vary widely.

The highest paid admin role would be office manager, €35 - 50k DOE.

Of course your benefits play heavily into this. You only work a 35 hour week (to round) vs 37.5 - 40 hours for most full salary positions. Most admins would get no more than 20 days holidays per year (including things like Empire Day ) and the defined benefit pension is gold.

The issue in the PS is also long term earnings. Find me an admin in a company who knows what their salary would be if they stayed in the same 'grade' for the next ten years. I know admin execs who are content to stay there because they're in mid €30k's now in their late twenties, and will be in mid €50k's on increments (which are still given) a few years down the line.

So the best judge would obviously be hourly pay. Let's say you're a mid-tier admin, €27,000 by our salary survey. You work a 35 hour week - this alone puts you at €14.83 an hour vs €12.98 for any admin who I know (and some I employ, working 0900-1730 to make up the half hour for lunch, which is unpaid - that's how it's done in the rest of the world!)

When we start to calculate in holidays, defined benefit.... You see the picture.

mari2222

WalterMitty wrote: »

Nurses in France around 30k versus 50k here.

Nurse pay in France varies from 1605-3601 euro per month , with full pension at age 55, or after 30 years work. I dont know if they get 13 months pay per year like most french workers do.

dan_d

From what I see searching for jobs, "admin" positions would be somewhat similar to yours, ie data entry, photocopying, reception work etc.

They range from about 18k to about 28k, depending on the organisation, but the very rough average seems to be 22-25k. Very rough.

To my mind, you should fall in there somewhere.