Think they can cut our wages? Get the guns

rathbaner

Comparative Total Labour Costs

Country Labour Costs US$ppp

Germany 59,526
Belgium 57,141
Austria 56,630
UK 56,612
Luxembourg 54,000
Norway 52,048
Netherlands 51,828
France 50,260
Sweden 48,763
Switzerland 48,489
Japan 46,916
Korea 46,604
Finland 45,302
United States 44,347
Greece 44,304
Austria 42,579
Denmark 41,252
Canada 38,627
Iceland 38,232
Italy 36,692
Spain 36,329
Ireland 34,379
New Zealand 29,037
Portugal 27,453
Czech Republic 23,604
Hungary 21,552
Turkey 20,182
Poland 19,847
Slovak Republic 18,215
Mexico 11,766

NB
1. Single individual without children at the income level of the average worker
2. Countries ranked by decreasing labour costs
3. Dollars with equal purchasing power

Source: Country submissions; OECD Economic Outlook, 2007

Banter Joe

We're borrowing over €400 million per week. A lot of that is going to pay public sector wages which are far higher than comparable private sector wages in this country.

This simply can't continue, and therefore other factors such as comparitive total labour costs with other countries aren't really relevant, in my opinion anyway.

See here

rathbaner

Banter Joe wrote: »

We're borrowing over €400 million per week. A lot of that is going to pay public sector wages which are far higher than comparable private sector wages in this country.

This simply can't continue, and therefore other factors such as comparitive total labour costs with other countries aren't really relevant, in my opinion anyway.

See here

Everyone appears to be dazzled by the €400m/week number.

Isnt that one tenth of what we're giving the banks while underwriting their deposits and shoring up their solvency requirements.

Did I mention Shell?

kevteljeur

rathbaner wrote: »

Everyone appears to be dazzled by the €400m/week number.

Isnt that one tenth of what we're giving the banks while underwriting their deposits and shoring up their solvency requirements.

Did I mention Shell?

I don't think it's as simple as that, although I agree that bailing out the banks was reckless and strategically unnecessary. Bailing out AIB and BOI was probably required up to a point, while letting Anglo Irish sink might have been a good idea. We're definitely bailing out the friends of the family there. However, I'm not sure that this is money that is being directly borrowed to be pumped straight into the banking system, while borrowing to pay wages and social welfare is a different matter. That means that nothing is being earned with which to repay that. It is 'dead money', rather than some sort of strategic protection.


What has Shell got to do with any of this?


.

ArseBurger

I'm getting my money out of Ireland asap and into offshore.

silverharp

rathbaner wrote: »

Comparative Total Labour Costs

Country Labour Costs US$ppp

I dont think those numbers say much to be honest , I would need to see it sector by sector with no PPP adjustments.

ei.sdraob

do these figures include or exclude the public sector?

btw


labour costs have a big variable = corpo tax

our one is very low compared to all them countries on that list


theres lies, damned lies and statistics

what we have here is a strawman presented by @rathbaner

sensationalist but no substance

next....

:cool:

eoinbn

Guns, random shell ref- Sinn Fein voter?

Good to know. Maybe you could pass the info onto Element Six who are leaving 370 people go because of the cost of business here.

From rte.ie, "Element Six says the Shannon operation has the highest manufacturing costs in the group". That is from a company with plants in German and Sweden.

TBH I am not sure how the labour cost is calc. I know that low employer PRSI is one of the reason ours is lower, but it has to be more than that. $34k doesn't even cover the average industrial wage in this country.

silverharp

eoinbn wrote: »

Guns, random shell ref- Sinn Fein voter?

Good to know. Maybe you could pass the info onto Element Six who are leaving 370 people go because of the cost of business here.

From rte.ie, "Element Six says the Shannon operation has the highest manufacturing costs in the group". That is from a company with plants in German and Sweden.

TBH I am not sure how the labour cost is calc. I know that low employer PRSI is one of the reason ours is lower, but it has to be more than that. $34k doesn't even cover the average industrial wage in this country.

remember PPP is basically saying that someone on €50K here has the same purchasing power as someone on $40K in the US. if you are a customer in Germany you dont give a **** .
I almost laughed at the intro on RTE , its too expensive to make Diamonds here

thebman

So jobs and companies are fleeing the country for the craic then?

silverharp

thebman wrote: »

So jobs and companies are fleeing the country for the craic then?

I dont know if that was for me, I'm saying we live and die by the market, said hypothetical German customer doesnt care about the working conditions of Irish workers, if they can source cheaper goods and services in the US or somewhere else they will. Likewise companies like Intel or Microsoft are not here to prop up dodgy house prices, over time they will move away to where our less then unique skill base can be replicated at a cheaper price.

thebman

It was for the OP who thinks the cost of doing business in Ireland is peachy.

I know we shouldn't compete with China because we can't but we should still be able to retain some level of manufacturing in the country.

Those jobs didn't go to China in the past 10 years and it was cheaper to do business in China then so why are they moving now? Need more info about the reasons companies pull out.

diverdriver

Guns? The government are busy putting further restrictions on gun owners and banning some sorts all together. Do you think this is a coincidence?:p

eamonnm79

thebman wrote: »

Those jobs didn't go to China in the past 10 years and it was cheaper to do business in China then so why are they moving now? Need more info about the reasons companies pull out.

Very Good point.
The 1900 Dell jobs went to Poland
Element 6 say the 300 jobs are going to South Africa.
Intel seem to favour Isreal over Ireland for new investment.
However some kind of clear precise metrics in this area should be conducted so we actually know why companies are leaving and what we need too do to prevent it, if possible?

Does Enterprise Ireland and the IDA already have this data?

Mad Finn

eamonnm79 wrote: »

Very Good point.
The 1900 Dell jobs went to Poland
Element 6 say the 300 jobs are going to South Africa.
Intel seem to favour Isreal over Ireland for new investment.
However some kind of clear precise metrics in this area should be conducted so we actually know why companies are leaving and what we need too do to prevent it, if possible?

Does Enterprise Ireland and the IDA already have this data?

The Dell jobs were never going to go to China. But as soon as they started building that factory in Poland, manufacturing in Limerick was on borrowed time.

Large corporations split the world into three areas, corresponding quite closely to George Orwell's 1984 predictions of three global superpowers.

There is America, Asia-Pacific and the place where we live which is called EMEA. (Europe, Middle East and Africa)


Many large corporations in the technology sector run largely self-contained business units dealing with each area. Very often all product intended for sale in these areas will be manufactured in the same block, but as these areas span continents, there are huge price disparities within them.

Each area has high-cost (advanced) regions and low-cost (developing) regions.

In Asia Pacific, the advanced areas are places like Japan, Singapore, Korea, Taiwan and certain parts of China. The developing areas include Malaysia, most of China and Thailand.

In EMEA the advanced areas include Britain, France, Germany and Italy. The developing areas include Hungary, Poland, Rumania.

In America the advanced areas are Boston, New York, CAlifornia. The developing areas are the Southern States and places like Mexico and Puerto Rico.


The trouble is that the status of regions change rapidly. Low-cost regions very quickly become high-cost regions, relative even to other regions in their block. It's not so long ago that Taiwan was a "cheap as chips" place to make stuff. Now, it's way more expensive than mainland China. Go back a few years further and Japan was a by word for cheap tacky mass production. Now it's a high-quality high-price location.

In Ireland we are in transition between low cost and high quality (ie low volume) manufacturing. Most of our electronic manufacturing has already gone to Romania and Poland. Think of companies like Celestica, SCI, Dell to name but three who have all made the transition. Some of them before the recession.

Naturally, the recession hasn't helped but I reckon Dell would have been out of here by now even if things were still buoyant. It's the way of things.

diverdriver

You're right. I worked for IBM at one point. They arrived at the campus in North Dublin in '97 built a microchip testing plant then a state of the art disc manufacturing plant followed by a server assembly plant. The disc plant was closed in about five years, the microelectronics plant lasted seven. All before the downturn. It was simply cheaper to move elsewhere. How long before the server assembly plant goes? Who knows.

It's the same with all of them recession or not. They move on. It's the nature of the business. You can blame high wages but the real issue is high costs of doing business here. Rip off Ireland doesn't just hit consumers. When I finished up there in a minor supervisory role I was being paid €26,000 a year with shift allowance including night work. That was pretty much top of the scale. So high pay was not the issue.

One thing to remember though, once gone they never come back. That's it.

ei.sdraob

diverdriver wrote: »

You're right. I worked for IBM at one point. They arrived at the campus in North Dublin in '97 built a microchip testing plant then a state of the art disc manufacturing plant followed by a server assembly plant. The disc plant was closed in about five years, the microelectronics plant lasted seven. All before the downturn. It was simply cheaper to move elsewhere. How long before the server assembly plant goes? Who knows.

It's the same with all of them recession or not. They move on. It's the nature of the business. You can blame high wages but the real issue is high costs of doing business here. Rip off Ireland doesn't just hit consumers. When I finished up there in a minor supervisory role I was being paid €26,000 a year with shift allowance including night work. That was pretty much top of the scale. So high pay was not the issue.

One thing to remember though, once gone they never come back. That's it.

and what is the main driver of inflation "rip off ireland"?

yep thats right high wages

eoinbn

eamonnm79 wrote: »

Very Good point.
The 1900 Dell jobs went to Poland
Element 6 say the 300 jobs are going to South Africa.
Intel seem to favour Isreal over Ireland for new investment.
However some kind of clear precise metrics in this area should be conducted so we actually know why companies are leaving and what we need too do to prevent it, if possible?

Does Enterprise Ireland and the IDA already have this data?

Well Israel is the brains behind Intel atm. When Intel were in trouble with their over heating, power hungry CPU's 4-5 years ago it was their Israel division that delivered the Core2 CPU. The fact that we aren't very competitive in ireland doesn't help, but if we had the quality of graduates that Israel, India and the USA have then we wouldn't have too much to worry about- unforunately we don't.

jimmmy

Banter Joe wrote: »

We're borrowing over €400 million per week. A lot of that is going to pay public sector wages which are far higher than comparable private sector wages in this country.

This simply can't continue, and therefore other factors such as comparitive total labour costs with other countries aren't really relevant, in my opinion anyway.

See here

true, and why do the public sector not do the right thing and insist on a sizeable pay cut for itself ? Its the highest paid public service in the world, is it not ....and we cannot afford it.

strangeloop

jimmmy wrote: »

true, and why do the public sector not do the right thing and insist on a sizeable pay cut for itself ? Its the highest paid public service in the world, is it not ....and we cannot afford it.

I highly doubt there will be pay cuts in the public sector Jimmy - Job cuts definitely. Very strong unions in the public sector.

jimmmy

strangeloop wrote: »

I highly doubt there will be pay cuts in the public sector Jimmy - Job cuts definitely. Very strong unions in the public sector.

The current situation where we have the highest paid / most overpaid public service in the world cannot continue...it is not sustainable to keep borrowing over 30 million per day for the public servants, strong unions or not.

P. Breathnach

jimmmy wrote: »

The current situation where we have the highest paid / most overpaid public service in the world cannot continue...it is not sustainable to keep borrowing over 30 million per day for the public servants, strong unions or not.

Nothing new, jimmmy?

jimmmy

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Nothing new, jimmmy?

since the last time you badgered me the country has had to borrow many more hundreds of millions of euro, at a high rate of interest, to pay you and your comrades more than you would get as public servants / retired public servants in any other country in the known world. Nice one;) ( for you that is ). Now please p.breathnach, stop asking me personal questions such as " Nothing new, jimmmy? ".

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

since the last time you badgered me the country has had to borrow many more hundreds of millions of euro, at a high rate of interest, to pay you and your comrades more than you would get as public servants / retired public servants in any other country in the known world. Nice one;) ( for you that is ).

one could just as easily say that the hundreds of million have been borrowed to pay for welfare

00sully

Riskymove wrote: »

one could just as easily say that the hundreds of million have been borrowed to pay for welfare

yes you could but it would still be cheaper to pay a heap of public sector workers that for doing nothing than the inflated wage they are on. Although SW payments should be reduced in line too.

dbready

strangeloop wrote: »

I highly doubt there will be pay cuts in the public sector Jimmy - Job cuts definitely. Very strong unions in the public sector.

Strong unions or not, let them ballot their members to strike - which I don't think would take a lot of persuasion. Let them strike for a whole month the country would save a fortune by not paying them. See how long their beloved unions who only live to get fat of their union dues, can actually afford to pay them strike money!!

BRING IT ON!!

jimmmy

hear hear....as someone else wrote in the papers at the weekend, any public service "workers" who strike will be stoned in the streets !

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

hear hear....as someone else wrote in the papers at the weekend, any public service "workers" who strike will be stoned in the streets !

1.I don't think anyone should be advocating voilence

2. the only strikes going on these days seem to be in the private sector, its funny how people can get outraged over hypotethical strikes and be quiet on actual ones. I don't see anyone throwing stones at electricians, bankers, etc

jimmmy

If one electrician goes on strike I employ another one. If one bank goes on strike I take my financial business elsewhere. Simple. Completely different to the apartheid-like economic system where our little countries public service ( and their retirees ) are the highest paid in the known world.

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

If one electrician goes on strike I employ another one. If one bank goes on strike I take my financial business elsewhere. Simple.

so if these went on strike for more pay, no big deal...you'd just use ones not on strike...

....but if some public sector workers went on strike they should be stoned?

jimmmy

Riskymove wrote: »

so if these went on strike for more pay, no big deal...you'd just use ones not on strike...

or I would do the work myself ( eg wire the plug ) or not get the work done or find a person who was happy to work for a fair wage;)

Riskymove wrote: »

....but if some public sector workers went on strike they should be stoned?

Given the publivc service workers in Ireland are currently the highest paid / most overpaid in the whole world, and given that the country is borrowing over 30 million per day - at high interest rates - to pamper them, and while I am not advocating violence , yes some of the hundreds of thousands of unemployed or poorly paid people in this country would stone them if they went on pickets, have no doubt about that. There is real anger out there.