One In Five Workers Govt Employee's

Supercell

From http://www.unison.ie/irish_independent/stories.php3?ca=184&si=1624464&issue_id=14146

" The buoyant jobs market in building, retailing and financial services is being reinforced by a surge in public sector employment. More than one in five of all workers is now employed by the government, as numbers rose by over 30,000 in the twelve months."

This seems like a house of cards to me, surely this is totally unsustainable in any downturn ..eg the housing/construction business ?

Comments, thoughts? ..i'm increasing worried that this country is horribly exposed if and when the next economic downturn begins.

Sponge Bob

14000 extra fractional teachers on fractional posts are now counted. EG if you were part time on 0.4 of a teaching job you are now full time on 0.4 of a teaching job with permanancy at that fraction of a full job.

Supercell

Didn't know that, i'm still in shock that one in five workers is in government employment though.

Unions and low productivity spring to mind, if and when the downturn happens..how are we going to pay these peoples wages???

There is no way in hell i'm staying in my reasonably paid job if tax rates rise..am off to another country and am damn sure many many of the mobile immigrant workforce, helping to fuel the current boom, feel any differently.
Couple that with our history of emmigration and there's a cookbook with many recipies for disaster

No way in hell am I investing in Irish stocks from here on in!

I'm deeply shocked!

Sponge Bob

Sorry , from that article

Around 13,000 extra people were working in education and more than 10,000 in health services. The core public service created another 5,000 jobs.

Many are low paid classrom assistants, when the child they assist leaves they will not have a job in that school guaranteed.

The rest are fractional teachers. I would estimate average cost €20k each.

The bulk of the rest of the 30000 are health care but again it spart timers being regularised.

Bar the classroom assistants we were carrying a lot as part timers before but not counting them .

We will take on 50 labour inspectors next year , big deal.

The teachers are going ape**** since yesterday as the new pay deal now brings in no automatic increments any more and performance related pay.

mike65

The % of workers in the public sector is not high by western 'post industrial' standards as far as I know.

Mike.

Supercell

Sponge Bob , your reducing my worries a lot, at least on the govt employment side of things, I fear our construction industry post SSIA madness is going to be a graveyard and also therefore the Irish economy though.

mike65, compaired to the UK (which has unsustainable levels of govt employees especially in NI imho) how do we compare, for example, to Denmark or the other Nordic countries that arguably are more similar to us in size?

mox54

We're living a lie at present, our economy is not performing well enough to keep it afloat - our success is home grown and we are sustaining ourselves, we've forgotten how to export and the balance of trade is a mess - lets hope the building boom / housing market keeps going because that's paying for everyone - I can see some horrible outcomes in the not too distant future:eek:

Supercell

mox54 wrote:

We're living a lie at present, our economy is not performing well enough to keep it afloat - our success is home grown and we are sustaining ourselves, we've forgotten how to export and the balance of trade is a mess - lets hope the building boom / housing market keeps going because that's paying for everyone - I can see some horrible outcomes in the not too distant future:eek:

The water is about to come over the hill imho, no question, gold while in a minor correction at the moment is going towards the 1k mark in many peoples views - http://www.thebulliondesk.com/

Sponge Bob

but the dollar will fall by 50% against the € and so what

mike65

Longfield wrote:

mike65, compaired to the UK (which has unsustainable levels of govt employees especially in NI imho) how do we compare, for example, to Denmark or the other Nordic countries that arguably are more similar to us in size?

Heres the overall UK % the same as ours. Note the huge diff between NI and South East!

Norway has a whopping 30% thats where all the vodka taxes go.

And heres the 'piece de resistance' as quoted from United Nations System of National Accounts in 1993 okay old numbers but proberly still fairly accurate overall.

India 69% (find this figure a bit hard to believe!)
Myanmar 68%
Libya 66%
Suriname 63%
Egypt 60%
Gabon 59%
Kazakhstan 45%
Fiji 41%
Kenya 40%
Poland 40%
Lithuania 39%
Bulgaria 37%
Oman 36%
Jordan 36%
Latvia 36%
Denmark 34%
Croatia 34%
Sweden 34%
Syria 34%
Azerbaijan 32%
Slovenia 31%
Norway 31%
Malta 33%
Qatar 31%
Iran 30%
Estonia 29%
Belgium 27%
Netherlands 26%
Slovakia 26%
West Bank & Gaza Strip 26%
Moldova 26%
Martinique 25%
Zimbabwe 24%
Romania 23%
Georgia 23%
Kyrgyzstan 22%
Czech Republic 22%
Greece 22%
Belize 21%
France 21%
New Zealand 20%
UK 20%
Australia 20%
Ireland 20%
Malawi 20%
Armenia 20%
Guatemala 20%
Albania 20%
Cyprus 19%
Canada 18%
Uruguay 18%
Switzerland 17%
United States 16%
Chile 16%
Argentina 16%
Venezuela 16%
Finland 16%
Spain 16%
Mexico 15%
Italy 15%
Portugal 14%
Turkey 14%
China 13%
Ecuador 11%
Brazil 11%
El Salvador 9%
Japan 9%
Thailand 8%
Paraguay 8%
Phillipines 8%
Hong Kong 7%
Colombia 7%
Honduras 6% (est)
Bolivia 5% (est)
Ukraine 4% (est)
Indonesia 4% (est)
Ethiopia 3%
Uganda 3%
Madagascar 2%

Mike.