Public sector pay up 1% on 2011 level

As fresh discussions on public service savings begin tomorrow, it has emerged that workers in the sector have seen average pay rise by 1% in the last year and weekly paid hours fall by 0.6%.

The latest figures from the Central Statistics Office also show that private sector workers earned an average of €617.94 per week in the third quarter of 2012, compared to €925.51 in the public sector. That was an increase of 1.6% and 0.9% respectively on the same period last year. It is the third quarter in a row there has been a year-on-year rise.

Conall MacCoille, chief economist with Davy, pointed out the €307.57 public-private earnings gap was the highest since the third quarter of last year.