CSO figures - All in society must play their part

Figures published by the Central Statistics Office highlight great disparities between the public and private sectors in relation to both pay and employment.

The average public servant is currently being paid €50,598 per annum, whereas counterparts in the private sector are earning €40,500, and the average industrial wage is currently €34,000.

The latest figures mean that the average employee in the public sector is earning 25% more than his or her counterpart in the private sector, and over 48% more than the average industrial wage. Whereas 113,000 jobs were lost in the private sector in the 12 months to March 2009, employment in the public sector increased by 2,900 in the same period.

“With the public sector pay bill now accounting for over 40% of current expenditure, and growing, the country cannot afford to finance its expansion,” warned Mark Fielding, the chief executive of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprise Association (ISME). “As the private sector suffers company closures, pay cuts and job losses, we cannot afford to allow a parallel universe where public sector workers increase in both numbers and pay rates.”

Even though employment did increase in the public sector in the 12 months to March, the figures are somewhat distorted by the fact that they had been rising so fast until last December that a subsequent decline is actually masked. Employment in the public sector dropped by 2,100 between December and March.

Many public servants provide valuable service to society, but the current inequities cannot be allowed to continue.

Benchmarking was introduced to bring about equity between the public and private sectors, but now that balance had been seriously disrupted in the other direction. One means of rectifying the balance would be by increasing the wages of all workers in the private sector, but that would be a sure recipe for more unemployment and eventual economic disaster for all sectors.

Another way would be to rectify the disparities by readjusting benchmarking to ensure that it achieves its original purpose in bringing about real equity between the public and private sectors. This is not about victimising any sector, it’s about being realistic. Achieving equity will not be painless, but we must all play our part.

ISME has called for the publication of the forthcoming report of the Special Group on Public Service Numbers and Expenditure Programmes. The Government effectively sought to pass on the responsibility for cuts and the public has a right to know what is done with the report.

Members of the Government effectively set up the group to get the best advice on how to proceed in cutting public expenditure. This does not mean that they must accept all of its recommendations, but the public should know the extent of the advice being adopted. Only then will it be apparent whether the delay was actually to get the best advice or merely a temporising device to delay having to make the hard decisions.