PRESS RELEASE
23 January 2009
New figures released by the Central Statistics office today show that public sector employment grew by 5,200 to 369,100 in the year to September 2008.
110,800 people were employed in the health sector and 97,800 in education and 39,300 in the civil service.
The data from the CSO also shows that average earnings in the public sector grew in the year to September 2008 by 2.9%.
Tony O'Brien, head of Business Consulting at Grant Thornton believes these trends are not sustainable and it is time to take some hard decisions.
“The private sector is bearing the burden of the rises in both the public sector pay bill and indeed the steadily rising Live Register,” he said.
“Last year 3.3 private sector workers were supporting every person either employed by the State or receiving social welfare assistance. Today that has dropped dramatically to 2.6 workers – hence the burden on every private sector employee still in work of supporting all those reliant on the State has risen by some 25%.”
This week, Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, revealed that the social welfare bill for 2009 will be in the region of €20 billion. Public sector pay and pensions is expected to cost the exchequer another €20 billion
“Everyone needs to recognise that the time for action is now,” continued Tony O’Brien, “While it might be unpalatable, the reality is that some means of reducing costs in the public sector is needed in order to help balance the government’s books and it is difficult to see how this can be achieved without reductions in the pay element,” he concluded.
ENDS
See http://www.cso.ie/newsevents/ for full report from CSO on public sector employment & earnings
Editor’s Note
Public sector employment grew by 5,200 from 363,900 to 369,100 in the year to September 2008.
However, while there has been a fall of 4,000 in the quarter from June 2008 to September 2008, this is not an exceptional element. In 2007, public sector employment fell by 8,300 between June and September.
The main contributor to the drop of 4,000 in the latest quarter was in the VEC and Institutes of Technology, where employment fell by 2,700 – but again there was a similar fall in 2007.
In summary, there is no evidence of underlying falls in public sector employment.
Earnings
Average weekly earnings in the public sector grew by 2.9% in the year to September 2008.
Some sectors, defence, civil service and the Gardaí did relatively well with average earnings increasing by 5% or more. Local authority workers and teachers did not do as well – their increases in average earnings being under 2%.
Labour Force
In the year to September 2008, the labour force grew by just under 30,000, but the Live Register expanded by 94,000 people. The live register has grown by a further 46,000 people since then – based on the Minister Hanafin’s statements this week.
A year ago, there were 4.7 people working in the private sector for every person working in the public sector. This has now fallen to 4.3 – in other words the burden of supporting the public sector employment has risen by close to 10%.
If people on the Live Register were taken into consideration, then a year ago 3.3 private sector workers were supporting every person either employed by the State or receiving social welfare assistance. Today that has dropped to 2.6 – hence the burden of supporting all those reliant on the State has risen by some 25%.