Survey reveals a 44% pay gap between public and private sector

sollar · 31-07-2011 11:47PM

Deleted User wrote: »

The statistics for public sector earnings include data for semi-state companies - but it isn't at all clear what the breakdown is.

They should be presented separately. We had the paycut and they pension levy. The Semi Stares didn't... some of the Semi states even had pay rises (over and above increments).

thebman · 31-07-2011 11:49PM

sollar wrote: »

They should be presented separately. We had the paycut and they pension levy. The Semi Stares didn't... some of the Semi states even had pay rises (over and above increments).

This is true and with energy costs about to sky rocket is a cocktail for disaster for businesses and households across the country.

31-07-2011 11:58PM

sollar wrote: »

The Semi Stares didn't... some of the Semi states even had pay rises (over and above increments).

Which is why we're able to have this discussion. :eek:

Stavro Mueller · 01-08-2011 12:42AM

OMD wrote: »

Even cymbaline has admitted his/her pay has gone up

I don't see where I'm admitting to anything. I'm just stating the fact that yes, I did get an increment last year and that it worked out at around a fiver a week after tax. It's a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the pay cuts I've had. I'm not going to start whining or become embroiled in the private v public sector rows that inevitably start here. I'm just stating some facts. Yes I know the country's broke/I should be taken out and shot because of who I work for/it's not 2006. I accept that my pay has to be reduced but it really does get my goat when the Sindo prints articles like yesterday's one. It's as if our pay cuts never happened.

sollar · 01-08-2011 12:46AM

cymbaline wrote: »

I I accept that my pay has to be reduced but it really does get my goat when the Sindo prints articles like yesterday's one. It's as if our pay cuts never happened.

BTW did you hear the head of the FAI gets €400,000 per year. People like that need to be brought down some.

SBWife · 01-08-2011 01:03AM

sollar wrote: »

BTW did you hear the head of the FAI gets €400,000 per year. People like that need to be brought down some.

FAI is not a government body, my taxes don't pay his salary, therefore I don't care what he's paid.

sollar · 01-08-2011 01:17AM

SBWife wrote: »

FAI is not a government body, my taxes don't pay his salary, therefore I don't care what he's paid.

I thought they received some taxpayer support too. Maybe i'm wrong?

fat__tony · 01-08-2011 01:53AM

OasisGirl wrote: »

Are we still doing the public sector vs private sector war in this country? Divide and conquer was the name of the game and the government played it very well......seriously we are all in this mess together regardless of what sector we work in. I work in the private sector and my husband works in the public sector. When the times were good and a lot of private sector workers were getting good increases/bonuses/BIKs it was amazing the amount of people who said public sector workers were mugs because they were missing out just because they had a 'good pensionable jobs'. Then when the times got tough those good pensionable jobs were viewed with disdain and a view that they don't deserve any of it. We need to open our eyes to what really is going on and not just read the garbage that some of the newspapers are churning out. I haven't had a pay increase for the last 3 year, most people are in the same position and I'm just thankful to still have a job. My husbands down nearly 14k regardless of any increments that he may be entitled to. I'd do the bloody lotto........if I could only afford a ticket! :rolleyes:

Cry me a bloody river.

OMD · 01-08-2011 08:44AM

cymbaline wrote: »

OMD wrote: »

Even cymbaline has admitted his/her pay has gone up

I don't see where I'm admitting to anything. I'm just stating the fact that yes, I did get an increment last year and that it worked out at around a fiver a week after tax. It's a mere drop in the ocean when compared to the pay cuts I've had. I'm not going to start whining or become embroiled in the private v public sector rows that inevitably start here. I'm just stating some facts. Yes I know the country's broke/I should be taken out and shot because of who I work for/it's not 2006. I accept that my pay has to be reduced but it really does get my goat when the Sindo prints articles like yesterday's one. It's as if our pay cuts never happened.

In the last year, despite all the tax rises, even after your pension levy has been taken off, your take home pay increase by â‚¬250 (at least). Yet somehow people saying public sector pay is going up really gets on your goat.

meditraitor · 01-08-2011 09:00AM

Public sector bill,

19bn per annum on wages and pensions,

The average wage has increased by 3% since 2007

and we still have apologists and excuse artists saying how they took at 10% drop in pay.......

No you didnt, the dogs in the street know that with the incremental rises you are "entitle to" that most of you are better paid than 4 years ago.

Quit the bull boys,

Stavro Mueller · 01-08-2011 09:17AM

Not in my world I'm not. I don't have my old payslips to hand any more but I'm certainly not earning what I was in 2007. My colleagues reckon their take home pay is back at around 2000 levels.

Don't forget the pension levy. It won't be reflected in any of the gross figures that you'll see. You can say what you like about it but ultimately, it is reducing a PS worker's take home pay.

meditraitor · 01-08-2011 09:33AM

cymbaline wrote: »

Not in my world I'm not. I don't have my old payslips to hand any more but I'm certainly not earning what I was in 2007. My colleagues reckon their take home pay is back at around 2000 levels.

Don't forget the pension levy. It won't be reflected in any of the gross figures that you'll see. You can say what you like about it but ultimately, it is reducing a PS worker's take home pay.

sorry to hear that, but can you explain how the average PS wage has increased by 3% without increments?

Stavro Mueller · 01-08-2011 09:42AM

I'm not the person to be asking about the nitty gritty details I'm afraid, especially seeing as I've not got my old payslips any more. All I can tell you is that what's coming into my hand on a Thursday is way down on what it was previously. Perhaps increments have something to do with it. If I get one this year (have no idea if they're still happening), the increase in my take home will be pretty negligible. The pension levy and tax will be eating into it and going back into the system. Just my tuppence worth

meditraitor · 01-08-2011 09:51AM

cymbaline wrote: »

I'm not the person to be asking about the nitty gritty details I'm afraid, especially seeing as I've not got my old payslips any more. All I can tell you is that what's coming into my hand on a Thursday is way down on what it was previously. Perhaps increments have something to do with it. If I get one this year (have no idea if they're still happening), the increase in my take home will be pretty negligible. The pension levy and tax will be eating into it and going back into the system. Just my tuppence worth

That's fine, and I don't doubt your honesty for one minute, but if you include the pension levy and pay cuts that have come into place since 2007, there should be a dramatic average reduction in average PS wages not an increase.

The average increments must be in the region 13%, this is also guess work as I read somewere that the average PS worker lost about 10% of there wage due to the levy and reductions a couple of years ago....

Welease · 01-08-2011 10:04AM

It's pointless to look at individual increases or decreases without taking the total pay and pensions bill into account..

Individual pay terms have been negatively effected by cuts and levies but this is part of the trade off to keep higher than required levels of staffing in certain departments (no mandatory redundancies), and a less than blistering pace of reform.

If the PS want to protect jobs at the expense of their own pay rates, then thats acceptable... but the overall pay and pensions bill needs to continue to drop to manageable levels in line with our tax take. In conjunction, the pay and pensions bill needs to be identified seperately from the overall costs of running a department, so we don't continue to see the removal of services as the primary cost cutting exercise in overstaffed departments.

Those departments which succeed in restructuring and adapting to the new conditions should be rewarded, and those who fail should continue to directly feel the impact of those failures... Only then will the people responsible begin to take the required level of responsibility for the decisions being made.

martian1980 · 01-08-2011 10:11AM

ah, 75 posts and still going. The homage to groundhog day continues.

Lads and Lassies, you can argue your 3% all you want, but the cost to the exchequer of the public service paybill has fallen 15.5% in 2 years. People here are jumping up and down & getting worked up about gross figures, when it's the net cost that counts, and there's no way that public servants can be 3% better off while the costs fall that dramatically.
A lot of the public service bashers on this forum peddle this line that they don't want to see people getting their pay cut, but it's necessary to cut costs. Well, here you have it - costs are falling & it's been done in an agreed framework. We'll just have to leave it up to the government and the union sympathisers in the IMF to decide if they want to rip up the agreement, but they government recently affirmed their commitment to it and while it's there, there'll be no more paycuts.

murphaph · 01-08-2011 10:50AM

The defecit is not clsoing though. Many taxes are at the point of diminishing returns. That leaves SW and PS pay as the 2 big areas in which we can reduce the defecit. I'd say the CPA may last until 2014 as agreed and then further pay cuts will be implemented. The govt and the IMF may have already agreed to this course of action-wouldn't surprise me. They go for the property taxes and water rates this year and in 2012, then a bit off the social welfare budget in 2013 then PS pay again in 2014.

OMD · 01-08-2011 11:00AM

martian1980 wrote: »

ah, 75 posts and still going. The homage to groundhog day continues.

Lads and Lassies, you can argue your 3% all you want, but the cost to the exchequer of the public service paybill has fallen 15.5% in 2 years. P
.

Show us the figures.

Godge · 01-08-2011 11:10AM

OMD wrote: »

Show us the figures.

I have posted this before. It is easy to find actual facts on the internet.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/...ayanal0510.pdf

Take the official Department of Finance report I have linked to. It states that the net pay and pensions bill has reduced from 18.753 bn in 2008 to 17.327 bn in 2010 a reduction of 1.426 bn and this does not take into account pension levy receipts of 875m in 2010. That means the total reduction in public service pay and pensions since 2008 is 2.301 bn out of 18.753 bn which is a percentage cut of 12.2%. The percentage would have been much greater if I looked at pay only.

At the same time public service pay as a percentage of net non-capital expenditure has reduced from 50% to 43% therefore taking up a lower percentage of total expenditure i.e. it has reduced at a faster rate than other areas such as social welfare, grants to business etc.

On the other hand, the reductions have not kept pace with the reduction in GNP. However, given that there have been further reductions in pay for new entrants, a futher reduction in numbers and a reduction in pensions from the start of this year, I think that 2011 will show a further reduction in the pay and pensions bill. Unfortunately, I do not see a copy of the 2011 report on the finance website.

Some of the trolls out there will bring up 2005 figures for comparison but the crisis dates from 2008 and the clear figures show a 12.2% reduction in the public service pay and pensions bill (I think that if you looked at pay only, the reduction would be over 15%) since the crisis started.

OMD · 01-08-2011 11:21AM

Godge wrote: »

OMD wrote: »

Show us the figures.

I have posted this before. It is easy to find actual facts on the internet.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/...ayanal0510.pdf

Take the official Department of Finance report I have linked to. It states that the net pay and pensions bill has reduced from 18.753 bn in 2008 to 17.327 bn in 2010 a reduction of 1.426 bn and this does not take into account pension levy receipts of 875m in 2010..

the first figures include the pension levy. You are counting it twice

Flex · 01-08-2011 11:25AM

Godge wrote: »

I have posted this before. It is easy to find actual facts on the internet.

http://www.finance.gov.ie/documents/...ayanal0510.pdf

Take the official Department of Finance report I have linked to. It states that the net pay and pensions bill has reduced from 18.753 bn in 2008 to 17.327 bn in 2010 a reduction of 1.426 bn and this does not take into account pension levy receipts of 875m in 2010. That means the total reduction in public service pay and pensions since 2008 is 2.301 bn out of 18.753 bn which is a percentage cut of 12.2%. The percentage would have been much greater if I looked at pay only.

At the same time public service pay as a percentage of net non-capital expenditure has reduced from 50% to 43% therefore taking up a lower percentage of total expenditure i.e. it has reduced at a faster rate than other areas such as social welfare, grants to business etc.

On the other hand, the reductions have not kept pace with the reduction in GNP. However, given that there have been further reductions in pay for new entrants, a futher reduction in numbers and a reduction in pensions from the start of this year, I think that 2011 will show a further reduction in the pay and pensions bill. Unfortunately, I do not see a copy of the 2011 report on the finance website.

Some of the trolls out there will bring up 2005 figures for comparison but the crisis dates from 2008 and the clear figures show a 12.2% reduction in the public service pay and pensions bill (I think that if you looked at pay only, the reduction would be over 15%) since the crisis started.

Some other interesting stats in there. Net PS Bill in 2010 €17.3B, while in 2007 it was €17.6B, representing a decrease since 2007 of some ~2% (and an increase over €1.1B since 2006). And as a percentage of GDP the cost of public services accounts for 10.8%, as opposed to 9.1% in 2006. In terms of GNP, 2010 the cost was 13.4% of GNP against 10.5% in 2006. Yea, we're makin great progress though, no worries

martian1980 · 01-08-2011 11:37AM

OMD wrote: »

Show us the figures.

lets not worry about those finance documents - I got those figures in the indo!

"The effect of these measures, combined with measures to reduce the numbers of public servants and to restrict other elements of the public sector pay bill, has been to reduce the net cost to the Exchequer by 15.5 per cent between 2009 and 2011."

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/privatesector-pay-now-44-behind-2836067.html

irishh_bob · 01-08-2011 12:41PM

sollar wrote: »

I thought they received some taxpayer support too. Maybe i'm wrong?

of course they do

scary · 01-08-2011 12:53PM

I work in the private sector and i get a pay rise every year and a bonus and my wife works in the public sector and her wages are decreasing every year, there are thousands like this in Ireland.
This whole public sector better off than private sector isn't as black and white as its made out.

20Cent · 01-08-2011 12:53PM

Averages are pointless when comparing public to private sector pay when you have such a broad range of jobs, experience and qualifications. Does the calculation include CEO's, the self employed etc ? From what I've read it does not. If Bill Gates logged into boards we'd all be millionaires on average. No use when your in the supermarket buying food though.

Someone should compare like with like get two similar positions with the same experience and qualifications and compare them that way everything else is useless. Don't know why anyone bothers with the Sindo anyway it is a rag run by a tax fugitive.

femur61 · 01-08-2011 01:11PM

scary wrote: »

I work in the private sector and i get a pay rise every year and a bonus and my wife works in the public sector and her wages are decreasing every year, there are thousands like this in Ireland.
This whole public sector better off than private sector isn't as black and white as its made out.

I agree with you, why doesn't your wife do something about it? I assume she can't/won't because no one will listen, I think thats the reason why people have a go at the PS. Some of the fat cats and I include the unions are destroying the name of the PS for the lower paid, so in essence they get no sympathy from the private sector. There are also so many inefficiences like the HSE and up to recently there was no incentive to be courteous when dealing with the public.

tails_naf · 01-08-2011 01:30PM

sollar wrote: »

There is alot of work involved in that. Who is going to do that when they will know what is planned.

You do what you are asked to do, or you are fired. Would be a big saving on redundancy right there when the layoffs come! Those that did dilligently document their jobs would/should probably be kept on, as at least they would be demonstrating some work ethic.

Seriously, are the employees so loosely manged that they can refuse to document their job?

Nijmegen · 01-08-2011 02:20PM

Some facts and figures would be nice around here.

If we look at the Croke Park first report, it accounted for savings in the PS including the pension levy. They cleverly didn't bother to include pension costs in their savings - IE, they told us the pay bill decreased as people left. Which it did. Unfortunately pension increases and increments led to a net increase in the total bill for public sector workers.

The €289m listed in savings was €144m when you factored in the increase in pensions (people moving from staff to pensioner), and this €144m reduction becomes a €106m increase when you factor in the €250m increment cost.

The pension levy was worth €945m in 2010, €3,060 per employee with the average cost of each employee being €51,601.98 per head - a 5.93% cost.

When the effect of the pension levy is factored in the pay bill has decreased by 14.4% including cuts, levy and - biggest item of all - those who have left.

The total estimated pay bill in 2011 will be €15.712bn vs 15.935bn in 2010.

The pension bill has increased 14.3% in the same period. It now stands at €2.2bn and is growing fast, particularly with all those who will take early retirement prior to the new pension regime entering next February.

All in all, increases are what we get to when we tease it all out, on the gross bill. Meanwhile, growth isn't increasing, taxes are going backwards - either net, like VAT, or in effectiveness per % - and our deficit is hardly budging.

Big redundancies and cuts to existing pensions I think.

martian1980 · 01-08-2011 02:41PM

Nijmegen wrote: »

Some facts and figures would be nice around here.

If we look at the Croke Park first report, it accounted for savings in the PS including the pension levy. They cleverly didn't bother to include pension costs in their savings - IE, they told us the pay bill decreased as people left. Which it did. Unfortunately pension increases and increments led to a net increase in the total bill for public sector workers.

The €289m listed in savings was €144m when you factored in the increase in pensions (people moving from staff to pensioner), and this €144m reduction becomes a €106m increase when you factor in the €250m increment cost.

The pension levy was worth €945m in 2010, €3,060 per employee with the average cost of each employee being €51,601.98 per head - a 5.93% cost.

When the effect of the pension levy is factored in the pay bill has decreased by 14.4% including cuts, levy and - biggest item of all - those who have left.

The total estimated pay bill in 2011 will be €15.712bn vs 15.935bn in 2010.

The pension bill has increased 14.3% in the same period. It now stands at €2.2bn and is growing fast, particularly with all those who will take early retirement prior to the new pension regime entering next February.

All in all, increases are what we get to when we tease it all out, on the gross bill. Meanwhile, growth isn't increasing, taxes are going backwards - either net, like VAT, or in effectiveness per % - and our deficit is hardly budging.

Big redundancies and cuts to existing pensions I think.

so, if there were PS redundancies and people ended up on the dole, would you be adding back the dole payments that the former public servants were getting afterwards when calculating the saving?

thebman · 01-08-2011 02:56PM

martian1980 wrote: »

so, if there were PS redundancies and people ended up on the dole, would you be adding back the dole payments that the former public servants were getting afterwards when calculating the saving?

Well you'd have to as the overall goal is to balance the budget and not to attack people though people obviously feel like that when people say it is time to approach the wage and welfare part of the budget as it is the largest part of expenditure and so you can't help but reduce it if you want to cut spending by 18 billion odd Euro I think it is now.

Survey reveals a 44% pay gap between public and private sector

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