CSO report on public-private pay gap

not yet

frankosw wrote: »

Somebody is gonna come on and tell you that the average Joe is earning 65k or somthing like that and that they are also earning 50% more than the same person(if they existed) in teh privsate sector.

There's a cliche for ever occasion round here.

True, but the strange thing is for the purposes of the PS average wage everyone from Kenny down is taken into account which skews the real figure the average Joe earns, In the private sector Senior bank staff, senior managers in multi-nations etc are not added in.

Head The Wall

not yet wrote: »

Most PS workers I know earn the average industrial wage,or slighty above.

For this wage they are on the whole dedicated, professional, have long service, and never earned huge money in the boom.

I am the first to say something needs to be done about consultants earning 250k a year or County managers earning more then the spanish prime minister but a guy on 25-35k a year ?.........................

Firstly a clerical officer with long service can earn up to 37,341 this is one of the more basic jobs in the PS that doesn't even require a leaving cert. Your definition of "never earned huge money in the boom" is also incorrect. The ESRI report in 2008 stated that it was these "lower paid" positions that had the biggest actual pay differential for comparable jobs. It was around 38% at the time and the most recent CSO report also re-iterated this point again about the lower paid being the most overpaid.

The data was also modelled using quantile regression. These results showed that the 2009 pay gap was highest at
the lower end of the earnings distribution and, in general, decreased as earnings increased.

not yet wrote: »

True, but the strange thing is for the purposes of the PS average wage everyone from Kenny down is take into account which skews the real figure the average Joe earns, In the private sector Senior bank staff, senior managers in multi-nations etc.

The same can be said for the private sector where there are very well paid CEO's and entrepreneurs as well as lower paid. These are again all issues in the UK where the average pay differential is around 7% but in Ireland it's 40%, why is that? It wouldn't be anything to do with the PS being overpaid would it.

not yet

Report issued only this week said the difference is between 3-10% does not suit your argument thou.

Jaysoose

not yet wrote: »

True, but the strange thing is for the purposes of the PS average wage everyone from Kenny down is taken into account which skews the real figure the average Joe earns, In the private sector Senior bank staff, senior managers in multi-nations etc are not added in.

How does it skew the real figure? This is a profound misrepresentation of statistics to say that the top earners are bringing the average up that much. With 300'000 public sector workers enda kenny and the lad
wages barely even move the figures as there simply isnt enough of them when the sample size is 300,000 plus.

Head The Wall

not yet wrote: »

Report issued only this week said the difference is between 3-10% does not suit your argument thou.

Well it's obvious you haven't read the report. Page 7 (Summary of findings) Point 5 as it's the lower paid we are discussing here.

Also Page 30, third paragraph of the conclusion

Tell us where exactly in the report this 3-10% differential for the lower paid.

Riskymove

Jaysoose wrote: »

How does it skew the real figure? This is a profound misrepresentation of statistics to say that the top earners are bringing the average up that much. With 300'000 public sector workers enda kenny and the lad
wages barely even move the figures as there simply isnt enough of them when the sample size is 300,000 plus.

this particular report is based on a survey, not global figures

fliball123

frankosw wrote: »

You're very fond of words like "majority" and "average" arent you?

I assume thats to mask your complete lack of real figures.

You also seem to forget that PS workers pay more tax thsan thier private sector counterparts in the form of pension contributions and pension levy...the PS *is* the taxpayer that you're constantly going on about.

Somebody on minimum wage pays little or no tax..in the private sector usually,somebody self employed pays whatever they feel like and hopes for the best...private sector again,Stubbs gazette is full of judgements against people who have defrauded the revenue commisioner and they're ALL private sector.

Anybody in the public sector gets thier tax deducted at source leaving no room for a spot of creative book-cooking and it was bankers,developers and builders that caused this bloody mess in teh first place and they for the most part have wriggled off the hook leaving the PS taxpayers to foot teh bill.

Would you go and **** how much more would they be paying in tax if you took what a private sector employee would have to pay to garnish a public sector pension... I agree with those on the lower ebbs of the private sector the tax net needs to be widened and tighter scrutiny needs to be enforced on self employed...And sorry but the bankers builders didnt cause the mess..it caused about 1/3rd of the mess this has been done to death on boards..the other 2/3rds were from over borrowing for the day to day running of the country..so even if the banks didnt get into trouble we would still be in a massive hole...sorry to spoil your rant on bankers and builders..I agree they did substantial damage but not as much as our over borrowing for public sector pay / perks / pensions and social welfare.

fliball123

not yet wrote: »

Just a small point some people may find interesting......Their is 25 billion worth of business done on the black economy each year. Would you say these people pay towards pensions from that.

No they dont but this is one of the fall outs from over taxing your citizens unfortunately

fliball123

frankosw wrote: »

Without meaning to sound unpleasant you really are in no position to offer ecnonomic advice with that level of written English.

Attack the ball not the man

fliball123

not yet wrote: »

Most PS workers I know earn the average industrial wage,or slighty above.

For this wage they are on the whole dedicated, professional, have long service, and never earned huge money in the boom.

Are we now to go trough this sh1t for another 5 years about cut wages across the board. Yes, I know we are in a deep recession but for christ sake do people really want to smash the ordinary PS worker. I am the first to say something needs to be done about consultants earning 250k a year or County managers earning more then the spanish prime minister but a guy on 25-35k a year ?.........................

Once again I think the majority of people would say leave those on under 30 odd k alone, the point has to be made that we cannot afford this and the government are being forced into unreal scenarios where blind people on welfare are having cuts to their payments...There needs to be wage reform from the top down, but those at the top hide behind the lower paid and the front line public servants

sarumite

Riskymove wrote: »

It is a very important issue and it should concern all employees PS or private, however, there is no fund and therefore there is no fund deficit as such

pensions are paid from current funds each year so really its about what do exisiting PS pay per annum in terms of levys, contributions, prsi and tax?

and what do the PS pensions cost per annum?

a number of measures have been taken to reduce the future costs:

pay cut
pension levy
average instead of final salary
increased retirement age
reduction in numbers

and so on.


I am sure more measures will be taken in the future

My understanding is that the pension levy doesn't actually affect the cost of pensions. It was specifically designed so that it wouldn't affect the cost of pensions as it is neither a contribution nor does it reduce the gross pay.

sarumite

frankosw wrote: »

Somebody is gonna come on and tell you that the average Joe is earning 65k or somthing like that and that they are also earning 50% more than the same person(if they existed) in teh privsate sector.

There's a cliche for ever occasion round here.

If you are going to attack someone on their spelling and typographical errors, you really need to be beyond reproach yourself. Otherwise you end up looking like a foolish hypocrite.

cosbloodymick

Japer wrote: »

fixed that for you

Jaysus I wish you were really doing my payroll .
I am only posting the facts as they apply to me.
If you were serious about the issue maybe you could respect that.

cosbloodymick

fliball123 wrote: »

Mick the private sector is being decimated, there are some sectors flourishing and making a profit the ps see some pay incresases and think that they should be entitled to the same..They neglect to see the companies in trouble cutting an slashing and inevitably going to the wall..The gov is borrowing 2.5million an hour...now do you think the ps should follow the model of the flourishing sectors or ones that are in trouble...I mean increments and allowances are a complete jock given the state the country finds itself in.. I think the majority of people here are looking for common sense...cuts from the top..major cuts at the top and maybe tiny ones from those under say 30k...People are looking for the ps to adhere to the real world...like no more allowances for holding a key or making a fcuking box or for traveling to work or paying unvouched expenses. They are looking for the gov to stop paying increments temporarily until we are out of the sh1tstorm which in any private sector company which is in the same financial mess the gov are in would of happened back in 2008... The private sector has woken up to the fact that every cent that cannot be brought back in from the ludicrous social partnership agreement will have to come from increased taxes.... The private sector do not want to destoy the ps terms and conditions all we want is value for the taxes we pay..We have seen our taxes increased by a very large % when both direct and indirect taxes are taken into account and yet the service being offered has been diminished year in year out for the last 5 years....

Sorry but to give you an analogy with in the private sector...if you were shopping in Dunnes and you had 100 euros a week to do your shopping and Dunnes upped their prices and cut service such as no more trollies, no more cleaning etc and then you found that your 100 had been cut to 60...would you still shop in dunnes? No you wouldnt you would be off to Aldi or Lidle but unfortunately we have no competition for the public sector in this country so the private sector are told to shut up and get on with it..So sorry if you think we are having a go at your terms and conditions as we look at the sick and dying in this country not having a bed to die on due to cuts to services instead of core pay

I am well aware of the hardship in the private sector and anyone that loses their job has my utmost sympathy.
With regard to your point regarding allowances and increments, I would also prefer if their were none of either. But unfortunately in the Public Sector workers have to undergo an incremental progression to get to the proper rate for the job they do. If the powers that be don't want an incremental scale and a never ending rising Public sector pay bill they can put staff on the correct rate for the job (as what happens in most private sector companies). Leo Varadkar who recently called for an end or suspension of increments is in the happy position of starting at the rate for the job he does, which happens to be remunerated at double what most Public servants earn.
I also agree some of the allowances are wrong, especially the ones politicians get, but unfortunately over the years rather than give a pay rise for extra work they gave an allowance which in my opinion should never have been the way to go about things.
I pay the same taxes as any private sector worker and I also use public services. Am I happy with the service provided? Overall no. But hammering ordinary people at the coalface trying their best to provide same services with reduced resources is counterproductive.

not yet

fliball123 wrote: »

No they dont but this is one of the fall outs from over taxing your citizens unfortunately

So why don't all the people so desperate to save money go chase this..

cosbloodymick

fliball123 wrote: »

Sorry on average 7% how anyone can defend the pension levy when what the ps pay with levy will not cover the costs of the existing members is a joke..Hows about you take you pension levy back and look after your own pensions

In companies that have pension schemes the employer usually makes some degree of contribution towards the scheme. It did when I worked in the private sector.
Many in the public sector would withdraw from the scheme in exchange for the old age state pension which public sector workers are not entitled to.
If a private company took pension contributions from its employees and did not put those contributions into a fund they would be before the courts, however the government takes the contributions of its staff and spends them ensuring that there is no fund for our contributions.
We are not going to get the pension that we were promised in our contract and we will have paid through the nose for it.

cosbloodymick

Head The Wall wrote: »

So you had a 15% pay cut in the first year . Yeah right, are you the taoiseachs right hand man or what?

Pension Levy of 7.5% + Pay cut of 8.5 % = 15% reduction aswell as the USC and other tax increases.
The Taoiseachs right hand men walked into his office and said the public sector pay cuts don't apply to me and my senior public sector colleagues and amazingly the Taoiseach agreed. Quelle surprise!!
One rule for the elite another for the rest of us

tayto lover

cosbloodymick wrote: »

Pension Levy of 7.5% + Pay cut of 8.5 % = 15% reduction aswell as the USC and other tax increases.
The Taoiseachs right hand men walked into his office and said the public sector pay cuts don't apply to me and my senior public sector colleagues and amazingly the Taoiseach agreed. Quelle surprise!!
One rule for the elite another for the rest of us

Is that true? Were the senior PS left untouched? Find it hard to believe but I have been shocked before.

cosbloodymick

tayto lover wrote: »

Is that true? Were the senior PS left untouched? Find it hard to believe but I have been shocked before.

It is true. They appealed to Brian Lenihan on the grounds that they no longer got a bonus so they should be spared the pay cut and he acquiesced.

tayto lover

cosbloodymick wrote: »

It is true. They appealed to Brian Lenihan on the grounds that they no longer got a bonus so they should be spared the pay cut and he acquiesced.

How that minister got away with that is astounding. The same lad who guaranteed Anglo etc :mad:!!!!

woodoo

tayto lover wrote: »

Is that true? Were the senior PS left untouched? Find it hard to believe but I have been shocked before.

Yes it is true, i remember being almost sick when i heard that Lenihan backtracked on the senior guys. It was scandalous and one of my lasting memories if Lenihan when i hear his name.

Idbatterim

I pay the same taxes as any private sector worker and I also use public services. Am I happy with the service provided? Overall no. But hammering ordinary people at the coalface trying their best to provide same services with reduced resources is counterproductive.

see i agree with this, public servants are also tax payers, and users of public services, i assume most of them posting on here, arent for the most part the ones totally creaming it off, thats why i fail to see how there isnt almost civil war in the PS, when they get pay cuts etc, and they and their unions start bitching, there would be no need for it, if those creaming it off actually took a hit for a change!

barneystinson

fliball123 wrote: »

Would you go and **** how much more would they be paying in tax if you took what a private sector employee would have to pay to garnish a public sector pension...

Not a valid comparison, and here's why: http://www.tridentconsulting.ie/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Pension-Shock-public-service-pensions1.pdf

cosbloodymick

Idbatterim wrote: »

see i agree with this, public servants are also tax payers, and users of public services, i assume most of them posting on here, arent for the most part the ones totally creaming it off, thats why i fail to see how there isnt almost civil war in the PS, when they get pay cuts etc, and they and their unions start bitching, there would be no need for it, if those creaming it off actually took a hit for a change!

Thats whats going on. The people at the top are hiding behind the people at the bottom to protect themselves. You never hear a highly paid Public servant on the Radio/TV/Newspaper defending their large salaries. Oh no! They will say nothing and let the nurses union reps to defend nurses or clerical officer union reps to defend clerical officers and use these people defending the lower and middle income to inadvertantly protect the top of the pay scale.

ballyharpat

not yet wrote: »

Report issued only this week said the difference is between 3-10% does not suit your argument thou.

The report issued this week does not take into account that I work as a HCA, as qualified as one can get in that line of work, and if I were working in the Public Sector, I would get 50% more money, as I stated in an earlier post, and many more HCA's around the country get paid minimum wage, making a HCA in the public sector get a wage of 200%+ for doing the same job.....

Farmer Pudsey

frankosw wrote: »

Without meaning to sound unpleasant you really are in no position to offer ecnonomic advice with that level of written English.

English has nothing to do with economics or maths also if I passed a comment like that about a public service poster my card would be marked I find it a bit condecending from someone that cannot understand basic maths

frankosw wrote: »

So what happened to the grand a week they were earning? Did they put it towards thier pensions? Fill out income tax returns or self assesment forms?

How much of that did builders pay in tax?

I knew of blokes i went to school with working cash in hand on building sites for 700 quid a week in the mid-1990's.....why were they paying no tax?

How many tradesmen now are tax compliant? Any work on my house i've had done in the last six months offered a cash in hand price or a "VAT inluded" price which differed substantially...some didnt even bother with the VAT included option and several wanted either cash or cheques made out to cash.

If you're worried about the state of teh irish economy at least make sure everybody is paying thier share and not just victimising public sector staff.

This is a real bit of a rant as I explianed in my post most of these were young people who had the atitude easy come easy go with money. If any tradesman suggested that you should report him however as a side issue it is different from the PS where your wages are there at the end of the week no matter what it very different when you are trying to put bread on the table and trying as a legitimate sole trade to deal with the black economy. There is many a ps servant that would request a cash price from a tradesman.

not yet wrote: »

Most PS workers I know earn the average industrial wage,or slighty above.

For this wage they are on the whole dedicated, professional, have long service, and never earned huge money in the boom.

Are we now to go trough this sh1t for another 5 years about cut wages across the board. Yes, I know we are in a deep recession but for christ sake do people really want to smash the ordinary PS worker. I am the first to say something needs to be done about consultants earning 250k a year or County managers earning more then the spanish prime minister but a guy on 25-35k a year ?.........................

If you check my post and alot of the posters pointing out about excessive levels of pay in the public service most make the point that only modest cuts should be entertained between 40-50K and incremental cuts above that with radical pay cuts for those earning 100k and above.

not yet wrote: »

Report issued only this week said the difference is between 3-10% does not suit your argument thou.

If you an earlier post of mine this was not quite the findings you should read the report in full.

fliball123 wrote: »

Attack the ball not the man

tayto lover wrote: »

Yes and also stop the grants the farmers get. These people are the real "entitled" but only contribute .9% of the entire tax take which is disgraceful. Not even 1%.
There are too many depending on the taxes paid by too few.

The reasons that farmers pay very little tax is that most are on low incomes also some comes in through the paye system on bigger farms as some family will be employees. Also it is hard to distinguish which is the tax that come from sole trades who have multiple area's of intrest. For instance are Farm contractors treated as Farmers or general sole traders.

The importance of farming can be seen last week with the Kerry Group Investment in Kildare. TBH it is nearly impossible to avoid tax on farm income as all cattle are on a central database, grain has to be accounted for as either merchants or farmers who finish cattle use it and all there cattle are paid for by cheque in the mart. In the last 10 years I have never seen a cash transaction for farm produce,

barneystinson

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

If you check my post and alot of the posters pointing out about excessive levels of pay in the public service most make the point that only modest cuts should be entertained between 40-50K and incremental cuts above that with radical pay cuts for those earning 100k and above.

So how much do you want to save with this measure, and how much are you proposing to cut by - "modest" is a very subjective word?!

Does anyone have a link to any kind of breakdown of the income distribution in PS jobs - i.e. how many workers there are in various income brackets like 0 - 30k, 30k - 40k, etc...?

Farmer Pudsey

barneystinson wrote: »

So how much do you want to save with this measure, and how much are you proposing to cut by - "modest" is a very subjective word?!

Does anyone have a link to any kind of breakdown of the income distribution in PS jobs - i.e. how many workers there are in various income brackets like 0 - 30k, 30k - 40k, etc...?

The average PS wage is 930 euro's there are 295,000 of them costing 14.3 billion. If we could save in the order of 20% over the next 3 years through targated wage cut on those above 40K and especially those above the average as well as through natural wastage and through targated redundancy schemes.

It is very hard to get hard stastics about the public srvice after all they do not know how many quango's there is.
They have made a start look at the money that will be saved by getting rid of town councils and combining city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford and Galway the figure is over 400 million I believe.

ezra_pound

OMD wrote: »

But if the private sector worker wanted to get the same pension entitlements, ie pension of 1/80 final salary (remember final salary) per year worked and 3/80 final salary X years worked lump sum. Plus a pension for his wife and kids. How much would he have to pay?

While you are at it how much extra would he have to pay into a permanent health insurance plan to get the same sick leave benefits as a PS worker.

Oh yeah and how much extra to get the equivalent of the in service death benefit?

Oh one final thing. Does pay include allowances?

In fairness this scheme is only for employees who joined public sector pre 1995.

The Pension for post 95 employees is years worked x 3/80 final salary minus 2 x state Pension

In other words what you state minus 460 per week!

barneystinson

Farmer Pudsey wrote: »

The average PS wage is 930 euro's there are 295,000 of them costing 14.3 billion. If we could save in the order of 20% over the next 3 years through targated wage cut on those above 40K and especially those above the average as well as through natural wastage and through targated redundancy schemes.

It is very hard to get hard stastics about the public srvice after all they do not know how many quango's there is.
They have made a start look at the money that will be saved by getting rid of town councils and combining city and county councils in Limerick, Waterford and Galway the figure is over 400 million I believe.

Holy Jebus, are we still stuck on "the average"?! :eek:

"The average" of a Clerical Officer in a Govt Department, a teacher, a nurse, and the Secretary General of the Dept of Finance and everyone in between is irrelevant - we need to bring down the total payroll, end of story. "The average" person doesn't exist, except for the purposes of statistics and arguments thereabout!

OK I found a breakdown of the numbers of Civil Servants in 2007 (from page 40 of the C&AG report on sick leave in 2009 - http://audgen.gov.ie/documents/vfmreports/69_Managing_Sickness_Absences.pdf)
If you plan on leaving people under 40k alone then in the Civil Service at least that means clerical officers and a good few EOs too. That's about 40% of the civil service.

And then you'll go gently on those between 40k - 50k, so that's the rest of the EO/SO grade staff and a majority of AO grade staff as well as some HEOs. That's about another 25%-30% of staff.

So now you're going to extract pretty much all of the hurt from about a third of the workforce in the civil service - a rule of thumb calculation based on the numbers in my own Dept (which has a similar grade distribution to what's on the table in the report) suggests that unless you propose to literally half the pay of staff at senior grades (PO, Asst Secretary and Secretary General) then you can't even get anywhere near to 10%.

Numerous posters on this thread have pointed out as a fact that it's actually at the lower end of the PS, which you want to leave alone, that the pay inequality is greatest. The simple fact is that there are people without even a leaving cert in some cases, who are paid over 35k to perform pretty basic clerical work which would never pay more than 25k-30k in the private sector - that's my take on it anyway. I don't see how a future benchmarking process could but reduce the pay level. (Interestingly but off-topic; the CO grade which makes up 35% of the workforce takes 49% of the sick days in the civil service.)

A feasible approach to me would be a cut of 2% (first 30k of income), 4% (next 30k of income) and 5% (remainder of income), in each of the next 2 years, so that's 4%, 8% and 10% over the 2 years, and bring the payroll cost down by about 6%. And apply it to PS pensioners too, so it brings down the pension payments cost too.