My outrage at some members of the public service

Riskymove

dresden8 wrote: »

I never claimed there was no interest in public sector jobs.

Especially at the clerical level that allegedly was overpaid by something like 26%, compared to the private sector equivalents. Allegedly.

the problem is that people refer to "public sector jobs"...the public sector is extremely varied

there definetely was an issue getting people in clerical grades at the height of the boom...they stopped doing exams at all and you could walk into the Public appointments service office and get an interview there and then. They even reduced educational qualification requirements for a time.

also, the type of person being recruitednoticably changed from young people to women coming back to work after raising children


it would obviously be different for higher level jobs of ones of specific interest (Guards, firefighters etc) which were always very competitive.

Seriously, as nice as money is, working in IT in the private sector - you are generally on the bleeding edge working on really cool stuff knowing that what you do makes a serious difference

well obviously its different strokes for different folks; not everyone would be interested in IT

I doubt money is the sole motivator for many people in the public sector too

PS Pay, SW, and Child Benefit should be readjusted downward on Dec 9. And yes, I'll pay more tax too. I don't live in dreamland

yep things are likely to happen in all these areas..but more importantly...for the next couple of budgets not just next month!

Sizzler

My neighbour works in the public service. He was due to have sunday and friday off (the week the marches were on). Since so many lads decided to go out and march on the friday his gaffer rang him and asked him would he come in to "cover", time and a half :rolleyes:

ronbyrne2005

Riskymove wrote: »

the problem is that people refer to "public sector jobs"...the public sector is extremely varied

there definetely was an issue getting people in clerical grades at the height of the boom...they stopped doing exams at all and you could walk into the Public appointments service office and get an interview there and then. They even reduced educational qualification requirements for a time.

also, the type of person being recruitednoticably changed from young people to women coming back to work after raising children


it would obviously be different for higher level jobs of ones of specific interest (Guards, firefighters etc) which were always very competitive.



well obviously its different strokes for different folks; not everyone would be interested in IT

I doubt money is the sole motivator for many people in the public sector too




yep things are likely to happen in all these areas..but more importantly...for the next couple of budgets not just next month!

Eh, there wasnt in my experience. In 2004 and 2005 i dropped a relation to croke park to sit the tests for clerical officer jobs in Dublin City Council and there were thousands attending for a few dozen jobs. That was close to the height of the boom. Produce documentary evidence to back up your assertion. CSO stats show clerical officers and other lower level workers are actually further ahead of private sector than higher earners in PS.

Riskymove

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

Eh, there wasnt in my experience. In 2004 and 2005 i dropped a relation to croke park to sit the tests for clerical officer jobs in Dublin City Council and there were thousands attending for a few dozen jobs. That was close to the height of the boom. Produce documentary evidence to back up your assertion. CSO stats show clerical officers and other lower level workers are actually further ahead of private sector than higher earners in PS.

I was talking about clerical officers in the civil service generally, not a local authority which would have less vacancies and therefore more competition

I dont have "documentary evidence" to back that up, it was just the facts at the time, I know from where I worked at the time and from people who joined up then; although I notice your anecdotes dont require the same documentary evidence as mine for some reason

I am also talking about the height of the boom not in recent years which the CSO report is about.

Tipp Man

Riskymove wrote: »

I was talking about clerical officers in the civil service generally, not a local authority which would have less vacancies and therefore more competition

I dont have "documentary evidence" to back that up, it was just the facts at the time, I know from where I worked at the time and from people who joined up then; although I notice your anecdotes dont require the same documentary evidence as mine for some reason

I am also talking about the height of the boom not in recent years which the CSO report is about.

Hold on Risky wasn't there a labour shortage in the whole economy?? Isn't that why we have hundreds of thousands of immigrants in this country?? I know from my own experience that the standard and number of people looking for jobs in accounting (in industry anyway) fell dramatically between 2003 and 2007.

seclachi

MaceFace wrote: »

I will say it - the Civil Service? Are you mad?

Apart from the guaranteed job, good steady wages and lovely pot of gold at the end, why would you want to work there?

Seriously, as nice as money is, working in IT in the private sector - you are generally on the bleeding edge working on really cool stuff knowing that what you do makes a serious difference.

My perseption of working in IT in the PS is working on internal business systems or websites which isn't going to get your blood going.

Bleeding edge in my Private Sector company includes pentium 3s, windows NT, Win2k and all other sorts of antiques. I have seen it at plenty of large multinationals too, not just some small company. Why go to the hassle and expensive of upgrading when the old will do just fine.

I would have never seen alot of that stuff even in college as it would have long since been junked. Of course I have also worked at a company that pays top dollar for IT kit and upgrades bi annually, that same company got absolutly slammed over the past few year unfortunatly.

Riskymove

Tipp Man wrote: »

Hold on Risky wasn't there a labour shortage in the whole economy??

absolutely, and this affected the public service as well (immigrant nurses etc)

Tipp Man

Riskymove wrote: »

absolutely, and this affected the public service as well (immigrant nurses etc)

So how can people say then that the private sector were not interested in PS jobs??

Riskymove

Tipp Man wrote: »

So how can people say then that the private sector were not interested in PS jobs??

well i guess the argument would be that we had pretty much total employment and if the public service jobs were so much better why did people not move over to them from the private sector at the time

labour shortage is about having too many vacancies but does not cover thos already in a job

Tipp Man

Riskymove wrote: »

well i guess the argument would be that we had pretty much total employment and if the public service jobs were so much better why did people not move over to them from the private sector at the time

labour shortage is about having too many vacancies but does not cover thos already in a job

but the stats prove that there has always been a high level of interest in PS jobs, be that 3 applicants per job or 83 per job. Now obviously when the country is in full employment then the applicant levels will be lower as people have more choice available to them

Riskymove

Tipp Man wrote: »

Now obviously when the country is in full employment then the applicant levels will be lower as people have more choice available to them

yes...the overall situation will obviously increase competition for jobs, wherever the sector, public or private

but.....at the time of full employment you could practically walk into one of these low-end clerical jobs which are apparantly much better paid than similar private sector....but people did not run into these jobs....why?

..one conclusion is that at the time they obviously were not that much better paid or more desirable...

so therefore it doesn't neccesarily apply to all public sector jobs

K-9

Riskymove wrote: »

yes...the overall situation will obviously increase competition for jobs, wherever the sector, public or private

but.....at the time of full employment you could practically walk into one of these low-end clerical jobs which are apparantly much better paid than similar private sector....but people did not run into these jobs....why?

..one conclusion is that at the time they obviously were not that much better paid or more desirable...

so therefore it doesn't neccesarily apply to all public sector jobs

Yes, but they appear to be the exception to the rule. I have seen this "nobody wanted to join the PS" line thrown out regularly. The increase in job numbers alone shows that, bye and large, plenty wanted to join it.

Riskymove

K-9 wrote: »

I have seen this "nobody wanted to join the PS" line thrown out regularly. The increase in job numbers alone shows that, bye and large, plenty wanted to join it.

I am not saying "nobody wanted to join the public service"

simply showing that its a matter of context and obviously how the economy is doing affects it. At the height of the boom the private sector was a better place to be generally (not for all jobs ) and in not so good times the public sector is better; there are swings and roundabouts to it

and that everyone is going now about how the clerical staff are show much better off than private sector equivalent, yet they are the very ones that could not be recruited...perhaps that formed part of the basis of having to make them more attractive in order to find staff

jimmmy

Riskymove wrote: »

but.....at the time of full employment you could practically walk into one of these low-end clerical jobs which are apparantly much better paid than similar private sector....but people did not run into these jobs....why?

There was always queues of people wanting to get in to public service jobs, because of the better pay, pensions etc compared to the private sector. One point that was made to me though was that time passes more slowly for people in public sector jobs, because when you are busy, time passes faster. Plus some of the general public have a perception of public servants as being ....well, you know, public servants ( overpaid, underworked, striking whingers )....and some may not want to be seen as one. I can tell you now that money talks.....most people would love the better pay / pensions / shorter hours / more sickies / better security + other perks ( eg sometimes half an hour to cash your paycheck ) that the public service offers.

Scofflaw

Riskymove wrote: »

I am not saying "nobody wanted to join the public service"

simply showing that its a matter of context and obviously how the economy is doing affects it. At the height of the boom the private sector was a better place to be generally (not for all jobs ) and in not so good times the public sector is better; there are swings and roundabouts to it

and that everyone is going now about how the clerical staff are show much better off than private sector equivalent, yet they are the very ones that could not be recruited...perhaps that formed part of the basis of having to make them more attractive in order to find staff

The problem is that unless there was a difficulty in recruitment - and the evidence suggests that there wasn't really - then there was no justification for benchmarking or any other effort to make public service wages equal to those in the private sector. To be entirely honest, most of us felt that at the time.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Riskymove

jimmmy wrote: »

There was always queues of people wanting to get in to public service jobs, because of the better pay, pensions etc compared to the private sector.

The problem is that unless there was a difficulty in recruitment - and the evidence suggests that there wasn't really

there most certainly was an issue with recruiting clerical workers in the civil service at that time

there were no exams held as oppossed to years before when there would be many sitting an exam.....there were people who walked in, were interviewed and placed in a job within a couple of days and they tried other measures such as they lowered/removed educational requirements in order to try and recruit people

thats not to say that there was still other postions very competitive, but that period definitely existed for a few years

and again....

I am not saying "nobody wanted to join the public service"

no justification for benchmarking or any other effort to make public service wages equal to those in the private sector. To be entirely honest, most of us felt that at the time

I wholeheartily agree

Scofflaw

Riskymove wrote: »

there most certainly was an issue with recruiting clerical workers in the civil service at that time

there were no exams held as oppossed to years before when there would be many sitting an exam.....there were people who walked in, were interviewed and placed in a job within a couple of days and they tried other measures such as they lowered/removed educational requirements in order to try and recruit people

thats not to say that there was still other postions very competitive, but that period definitely existed for a few years

and again....

Now if only the clerical workers there was difficulty recruiting were the grade that benefited most from benchmarking...

amused,
Scofflaw

Riskymove

Scofflaw wrote: »

Now if only the clerical workers there was difficulty recruiting were the grade that benefited most from benchmarking...

they weren't by any means

P. Breathnach

Riskymove wrote: »

they weren't by any means

I think you missed the point.

MysticalRain

Riskymove wrote: »

there most certainly was an issue with recruiting clerical workers in the civil service at that time

Just to clarify, what time period are you referring to?

Riskymove

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I think you missed the point.

No I am agreeing with him

benchmarking = loaded exercise

Riskymove

MysticalRain wrote: »

Just to clarify, what time period are you referring to?

hmm...

I'd say ......2002/2003 or so....but I might be off a year or two there

MysticalRain

Riskymove wrote: »

hmm...

I'd say ......2002/2003 or so....but I might be off a year or two there

Then how come there were thousands of people down in the RDS sitting the exams for clerical officers? I should know, I was there. As were many of my buddies from the IT sector.

Count Dooku

Riskymove wrote: »

hmm...

I'd say ......2002/2003 or so....but I might be off a year or two there

According official report in 2003
http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/downloads/an_report2003.pdf

- Clerical
Total Number of Applications Received 14,033
Number Interviewed 664
Number Assigned 1,060

14 applicants per position
Even if system refused them on early stage, it doesn’t mean that nobody was interested in those jobs

Scofflaw

Riskymove wrote: »

No I am agreeing with him

benchmarking = loaded exercise

It was, and I am fully behind anyone who suggests that the pay cuts in the public service be applied by rolling back the first round of benchmarking.

cordially,
Scofflaw

Riskymove

MysticalRain wrote: »

Then how come there were thousands of people down in the RDS sitting the exams for clerical officers? I should know, I was there. As were many of my buddies from the IT sector.

as I said I may be off in the years

I dont really want to get into he said/she said over this

I know it wasn't always like that, but it was for a period of time I know cause I was involved in the recruiting end

Riskymove

Count Dooku wrote: »

According official report in 2003
http://www.publicjobs.ie/publicjobs/downloads/an_report2003.pdf

- Clerical
Total Number of Applications Received 14,033
Number Interviewed 664
Number Assigned 1,060

14 applicants per position
Even if system refused them on early stage, it doesn’t mean that nobody was interested in those jobs

its also indicating that many were assigned without interview which does show there was something odd going on


EDIT: in 2004 there were around only 1,600 applicants which i suggest means they did not have those sit down RDS exams.

Tipp Man

Riskymove wrote: »

as I said I may be off in the years

I dont really want to get into he said/she said over this

I know it wasn't always like that, but it was for a period of time I know cause I was involved in the recruiting end

i don't doubt you but I don't see what your point is, plenty of jobs/careers will see stages where the number of applicants and/or the standard of applicants for jobs will be down.

I have been involved in the recruitment of many accountants in the last 8 years and i can tell you than in that profession the number of applicants was down, but standard was way down. That doesn't mean that nobody wanted to be an accountants or people frowned upon the profession

What point are you trying to make exactly, i;ve lost sight of it to be honest

Riskymove

Tipp Man wrote: »

What point are you trying to make exactly, i;ve lost sight of it to be honest

at this point so have I!!!:pac:

I think it was about that it wasn't always the case that ALL public jobs were in great demand even those (e.g. these clerical jobs) that are now being portrayed as far better than private equivalent

Tipp Man

Tipp Man wrote: »

What point are you trying to make exactly, i;ve lost sight of it to be honest

Riskymove wrote: »

at this point so have I!!!:pac: