The Reality in the Private Sector

Dannyboy83

EF wrote: »

I agree its none of my business but a % drop means very little if we dont know that it is a % of. A millionaire could say they took a 70% hit yet still be earning 10 times someone on the average wage who only took a 2% drop.

Well, if he said hes not prepared to disclose it, then you should respect that.
Besides, an average teacher (according to the INTO's own figures) could say hes taken a 50% drop in income and he would still earn more than the current AIW, so it works both ways.

But anyway, this thread is v.interesting, but we are derailing it, so lets stick to the topic.

More stories puh-lease!

gurramok

I've gone through 3 redundancy rounds in the last year, seen colleagues(both permo and contract) let go. I don't know if I have job security even in the next few months. I work for a big American MNC who employ a few thousand here so most of us had to face one form of reduncndancy depending on which dept we are in.

Anyway, in my own area, we had to accept changed work practices(more work) for the same pay. We are on a pay freeze for the last 15 months or so(lost count!). Luckily a paycut was not forced on us, some were asked.

Try swap that with higher pay, bullet proof job security and superior pensions.

westtip

Tipp Man wrote: »

So to be fair I think that westtip is actually a little conservative when he says 60k, and thats without including principals and vice principals

cheers Tipp for spelling it out. they don't know how good they have it - its a joke they are completely overpaid for what they do and the truth is we just cannot afford - the government cuts them or the ECB does.

Wake up Bertie has gone, no more soft touches (benchmarking), breakfast roll man is unemployed or scraping a living out doing bits and bobs here and there, the tax take is down.

We don't have the money - a teacher here with about 20 years experience a couple of increment points and a degree is on about 65K - a relative of mine in the uk with 30 years teaching under her belt in a senior position in a primary school is on about 35 sterling

WAKE UP THE PARTY IS OVER!!!!! The germans won't keep paying off our credit card.

Head The Wall

AlekSmart wrote: »

If these folks are averaging 50+hours a week then they and their employer are in breach of the Working Time Act 2008.

Maximum 48Hours per week averaged over 17 weeks thank you very much,and it does not concern the Dept of Enterprise,Trade and Employment whether you are doing it for the good of your company,cos you`ll BOTH be charged and fined.
(

Working Time Directive is a load of crap, RSA is enforcing it on truck drivers now just because they can but it is not enforced anywhere else.

What about all the junior doctors in the hospitals and the hours they work, isn't it the government that employs them.

The real joke about the WTD is it doesn't apply to self employed people, an example form a course I was on about it - A truck driver can do his "48" hr average week as an employee. If he has a taxi license he can then proceed to work all the hours he wants at the weekend (and evenings also). He can then present himself for work again on Monday morning and according to the law he is safe to drive because he has complied with the law.

Scofflaw

Head The Wall wrote: »

Working Time Directive is a load of crap, RSA is enforcing it on truck drivers now just because they can but it is not enforced anywhere else.

What about all the junior doctors in the hospitals and the hours they work, isn't it the government that employs them.

There's a specific exemption for junior doctors...

Head The Wall wrote: »

The real joke about the WTD is it doesn't apply to self employed people, an example form a course I was on about it - A truck driver can do his "48" hr average week as an employee. If he has a taxi license he can then proceed to work all the hours he wants at the weekend (and evenings also). He can then present himself for work again on Monday morning and according to the law he is safe to drive because he has complied with the law.

I've no idea how you'd enforce it on us self-employed people, though! My wife hasn't succeeded, so the government is pretty unlikely to.

cordially,
Scofflaw

AlekSmart

I've no idea how you'd enforce it on us self-employed people, though! My wife hasn't succeeded, so the government is pretty unlikely to.

Make no mistake but facilitating enforcement of the WTD on categories currently exempt is one of the more pressing items currently being discussed within the portals of the Dept of Trade, Industry and what commerce we still have left.

Some progress is evident with the taxi Driving fraternity as can be seen by the RSA`s recent media blitz about Taxi Drivers rest periods.
That was merely a tester to sound out responses from the industry which remained largely silent....:)

With advances in Tachograph Technology,currently being introduced in LGV and Coach applications,the next step will be to require fitment in Taxi Cabs.
However,this will not happen until the Taxi Drivers are in possession of a Drivers Card,which will realistically take about 4 years to occur.

It really is mind boggling to consider just how much Irish Civil Service time is being directed into studies and evaluation procedures into means of PREVENTING people from working.

... at the present rate it will see us firmly recessed well into the 2020`s before somebody see`s sense and actually ignores the elements of EU directives which don`t make sense .....it`s quite easy..just do as the French,Germans,Italians and Spanish do.....:rolleyes:

Scofflaw

AlekSmart wrote: »

Make no mistake but facilitating enforcement of the WTD on categories currently exempt is one of the more pressing items currently being discussed within the portals of the Dept of Trade, Industry and what commerce we still have left.

Some progress is evident with the taxi Driving fraternity as can be seen by the RSA`s recent media blitz about Taxi Drivers rest periods.
That was merely a tester to sound out responses from the industry which remained largely silent....:)

With advances in Tachograph Technology,currently being introduced in LGV and Coach applications,the next step will be to require fitment in Taxi Cabs.
However,this will not happen until the Taxi Drivers are in possession of a Drivers Card,which will realistically take about 4 years to occur.

It really is mind boggling to consider just how much Irish Civil Service time is being directed into studies and evaluation procedures into means of PREVENTING people from working.

... at the present rate it will see us firmly recessed well into the 2020`s before somebody see`s sense and actually ignores the elements of EU directives which don`t make sense .....it`s quite easy..just do as the French,Germans,Italians and Spanish do.....:rolleyes:

You may not be aware of it, but the English envy us our cavalier attitude to EU Directives...

cordially,
Scofflaw

ronbyrne2005

For those spouting on about employers taking advantage of recession to get more hours for same or less pay why is it wrong when it was ok when the roles were reversed? Remmber during boom the labour shortage meant people were leaving jobs every few years and getting better paying shorter hour jobs and employers had to rehire and retrain etc? We are in a global recession and domestic depression and businesses have to do evrything they can to survive and profit. If they profit they pay more taxes, employ more people , expand etc. We in this country want all the benefits of capitalism including funding massively generous welfare and Public sector pay but we want none of the downsides. Maximum working hours at this time is a sick joke. Its not like kids are being forced to work up chimneys 16hours a day.

nesf

The biggest thing I've been hearing from the industries I'm most familiar with (and no I'm not going to give detail since I like having some anonymity on here) is not so much pay cuts as it is of redundancies and hours disappearing. The amount of work available in the sector in general has dropped enormously (talking about 40% or so in terms of man-hours available). Places where 10+ hours overtime was always available are working strictly to 40 hour weeks now and even then they don't have enough work to keep everyone employed.

One of the biggest issues has been competition from the UK, with the currency changes a lot of work has been exported to the now very cheap British firms. Even without a depression pushing down demand for services a lot of firms would be having trouble I think, though not as much as they are having now.

The areas I'm familiar with are unusual though in that so much of the demand can contract. The work is the kind of thing that can often be postponed for a year or three and is inter-business, so a lot of customers are putting off overhaul work for cash-flow reasons right now. Nothing but the most urgent work is being done at the moment and the price competition is cutthroat with prices quoted dropping by 20-30% on some types of work compared to 2007 prices.

The only other areas that would be seeing similar problems would be the durable goods end of the consumer/commercial markets. Japan especially has been hit hard by this, as have car sales here.

whatnext

With regard to the WTD

To be brutally honest I couldn't give a flying F&** about it.

I work the hours I do not because my employer makes me or asks me to, but because I feel a moral obligation to do so. Other people inside and outside of our company rely on me making my deadlines. I'm sure that this is the case for a lot of people out there. I always considered the WTD to be a kind of safety net to prevent abuse of employer power not to prevent me from completing my tasks. I dont feel my employer has ever abused the market conditions in relation to hours, pay cuts or redundancies. The changes they have made are all economic necessities, essential for us to survive as a company.

The reason I outlined hours in my opening post was to outline the differences in private and public sector work practices. And this was not because I want sympathy, I just wanted to outline what I believe to be the reality for a lot of people out there.

My intention in starting the thread was to give people a platform to outline how things had changed in the private sector - out of necessity. I accepted these changes and am still glad to have a job, unfortunately some of my ex colleagues are not so lucky.

I suppose what essentially what I am saying is I am prepared to accept what has to be done both by my employer and in the budget as a necessity, how ever it hits me, and I have no doubt it will, and I think its about time the Unions got off their soap boxes and accepted it too.

seangal

ye can bash the public sector as much as yea want but we are in a mess because of the private sector greed greed and there price fixing which lead to 5% inflation which lead to high wage claims
Here is an example
Banker
Estate agents
Solicitors
Accountants
Builders
ALL worked together to create the housing bubble
Publicans
Restaurant’s
Retailers
All inflated there prices to get more profit
like where in the world would you pay €7.50 for a bottle of miller but u pay it in a pub in Ireland and they u see on the label " Not of individual SALE" which mean it came form a super market or even worse the north of Ireland. A steak cost € 26 euro in a Restaurant
Private sector GREED cause all this full stop and shame on yea all
Yes public sector got BENCHMARKING which for most worked out at 1% a year over 7 years but the big wage rise came from wage agreement matching inflation caused buy private sector and if i recall we all took the tax cuts when they were given
A lot of private sector took there big bonus as well and now is the time to take prices and wages back to 2001 and all private sector wages not just 10 % of employees

Tipp Man

seangal wrote: »

ye can bash the public sector as much as yea want but .......................

Are you planning on posting that in every single thread here?? Is that the best you can come up with??

ParkRunner

Just as I suspected..jobs are being lost but pay in many cases is actually rising in the industrial sector.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1120/breaking36.htm

More than 21,000 people working in the industrial sector lost their jobs in the 12 months to June of this year, according to the official data.

The figures, released today from the Central Statistics Office (CSO), reveals the numbers employed in the sector fell from 232,600 to 211,300 during the 12 month period.

The decrease was primarily among the production, craft and manual workers, which saw a fall of 17,700, while clerical, sales and service employees dropped by 2,900.

The data also shows hourly earnings including irregular bonuses rose 4.2 per cent from €20.35 to €21.20 per hour in the second quarter of this year.

Hourly earnings including irregular bonuses in the financial sector fell by 11.9 per cent, from €32.96 to €29.03 per hour during the same period.

The drop was due mainly to a fall of 69 per cent in irregular earnings which fell from €5.90 per hour in second quarter of 2008 to €1.83 in 2009.

Average hourly earnings including irregular bonuses and payments for managers, professionals and associated professionals in the industrial sector rose by 0.4 per cent over the year from €30.88 to €31.01.

Earnings increased by 1.8 per cent, from €20.41 to €20.78 per hour, over the same period for clerical, sales and service employees. They rose 3.7 per cent from €16.53 to €17.14 per hour for the production, transport, craft and other manual workers.

The CSO figures also showed the average weekly paid hours in industry decreased by 1.3 hours a week, or 3.4 per cent, from 38.5 hours to 37.2 hours from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period of 2009. In the financial sector hours fell slightly from 34 hours to 33.5 hours over the period.

Scofflaw

EF wrote: »

Just as I suspected..jobs are being lost but pay in many cases is actually rising in the industrial sector.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1120/breaking36.htm

I hate to break it to you, but hourly rates rising while number of hours worked falls doesn't necessarily result in pay rising:

Average hourly earnings including irregular bonuses and payments for managers, professionals and associated professionals in the industrial sector rose by 0.4 per cent over the year from €30.88 to €31.01.

Earnings increased by 1.8 per cent, from €20.41 to €20.78 per hour, over the same period for clerical, sales and service employees. They rose 3.7 per cent from €16.53 to €17.14 per hour for the production, transport, craft and other manual workers.

The CSO figures also showed the average weekly paid hours in industry decreased by 1.3 hours a week, or 3.4 per cent, from 38.5 hours to 37.2 hours from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period of 2009.

That means that "clerical, sales and service employees", whose hourly earnings rose by 1.8%, but whose hours worked fell by 3.4%, suffered a drop in weekly earnings of 1.62%:

Which|Hours|Manual|Clerical|Professional
Old|38.5|636.41|785.79|1188.88
New|37.2|637.61|773.02|1153.57
Change|-3.38%|0.19%|-1.62%|-2.97%

That is, of course, for those still in employment - and that brings us to another point. Chances are nobody's hourly earnings have actually risen - what is more likely is that the least valuable and lowest paid members of the workforce have been let go, thus raising the average pay.

Basic, basic statistics, basic business realities. I hope your job doesn't involve any of the former - I already know it doesn't involve the latter.

slight regards,
Scofflaw

ronbyrne2005

EF wrote: »

Just as I suspected..jobs are being lost but pay in many cases is actually rising in the industrial sector.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1120/breaking36.htm

Forget about private sector , the taxpayer doesnt pay for them. Without a large profitable private sector there would be a small low paid or non existant public sector. The unions tell us we cant compare the jobs that many PS workers do with private sector whenever the big wage premium in PS is pointed out but that is exactly what they did in benchmarking! A PS should get paid only what a governmnet can afford to pay them and base this on what ohter Eurozone countries pay their PS with of course a bit extra for higher cost of living here.

dresden8

ronbyrne2005 wrote: »

Forget about private sector , .

You do realise you are in a thread called "The Reality in the Private Sector" don't you?

Shelflife

As a retailer we employ 8 full time 4 part time, no pay rise for us since 2007, staff have had 3 payrises sice then , forced upon us by the jlc. this has ment we had to reduce the hours as we couldnt afford the wage bill to get any higher, we now work 7 days aweek and at least 60hrs each.

to the likes of sean gal i would appreciate not been tarred with the same brush as the profiteers that are out there.


at the moment we are constantly cutting costs and trying to drive sales so that we wont have to make anyone redundant.

namenotavailablE

Forget about private sector , the taxpayer doesnt pay for
them.

Is this strictly logically correct or could the following muddy the waters?

A simplified case could be made that the private sector performs a mix of "wealth redistribution" and "wealth creation" activities.
By "wealth redistribution" I mean exchanging goods/services in return for receiving cash from residents of Ireland, some of whom are taxpayers (mainly employees/ self-employed) and some non-taxpayers (mainly people outside of the tax net). This is a type of 'money recycling' activity by which money passes between taxpayers (and non-tax payers) but in essence the country doesn't generate 'new' wealth. By "wealth creation" I mean exchanging goods/services in return for receiving cash from foreign consumers i.e. bringing wealth into the country. In this activity, the country increases its wealth as the private sector has succeeded in bringing in wealth from outside of the country. It could also be said that 'primary producers' such as farmers or mining/mineral companies also add to the wealth of the country as they essentially generate 'new money' from the country's natural resources.

Couldn't the case then be made that the taxpayer DOES in fact -to a certain extent- pay for the private sector, since a proportion of the 'recycled' money in the hands of the private sector is sourced from the Irish taxpayer?

Arnold Layne

Took a 15% paycut 2 years ago to get involved in the set up of a new company.

No pension payments since the move to new employment as the business hasn't taken off.

Now on a 3 day week.

_Kooli_

Salary increased over 300% in less than 10 years.
Last year the company i worked for opted to give us a 10% pay cut.
Most of us just left and got jobs elsewhere for more money.

Some were scared and stayed and took the pay cut.
Some were not good enough (their own fault for not making themselves more employable) to get jobs elsewhere so stayed and took the pay cut.
All who stayed are constantly giving out about the public sector or anyone else they can think of. Jealousy, i think.

My current situation.
€100k plus

24 - 27 days holidays. depending on bonus days.
Nice big salary bonus too.
7.5% pension from my employer. I pay another 20%.
Monthly meal allowance.
Monthly Mortgage/rent allowance.


Im sick listening to people taking out their own lack of employablity on others, like the public sector. Obviously it make them feel better by attacking others, instead of just taking the bull by the horns and working at their own situation.

whatnext

namenotavailabl wrote: »

Is this strictly logically correct or could the following muddy the waters?

A simplified case could be made that the private sector performs a mix of "wealth redistribution" and "wealth creation" activities.
By "wealth redistribution" I mean exchanging goods/services in return for receiving cash from residents of Ireland, some of whom are taxpayers (mainly employees/ self-employed) and some non-taxpayers (mainly people outside of the tax net). This is a type of 'money recycling' activity by which money passes between taxpayers (and non-tax payers) but in essence the country doesn't generate 'new' wealth. By "wealth creation" I mean exchanging goods/services in return for receiving cash from foreign consumers i.e. bringing wealth into the country. In this activity, the country increases its wealth as the private sector has succeeded in bringing in wealth from outside of the country. It could also be said that 'primary producers' such as farmers or mining/mineral companies also add to the wealth of the country as they essentially generate 'new money' from the country's natural resources.

Couldn't the case then be made that the taxpayer DOES in fact -to a certain extent- pay for the private sector, since a proportion of the 'recycled' money in the hands of the private sector is sourced from the Irish taxpayer?

Interesting point, the opposite to arguement is one I've always held (I know its not the same and we probably agree with each others points), ie buying imported goods althoug they may cost more at the point of sale in effect cost us more in the following years tax bill as a large proportion of that money is permanently gone from our economy

nesf

EF wrote: »

Just as I suspected..jobs are being lost but pay in many cases is actually rising in the industrial sector.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/1120/breaking36.htm

Look, just no. Scofflaw pointed this out but it needs to be spelled out for people I think.

There are two ways that average pay increases for a large group. The first is people get an actual pay rise, the other is lower paid people can be fired. Now, given the rather large increase in unemployment recently no one with any sense would opt for the former explanation over the latter. Most companies work on a first in, last out basis with redundancies so the lower paid more recent employees will be the most likely to be let go. This effect will can cause there to an increase in the average hourly pay even if there's been a pay cut taken by other people under certain circumstances! You cannot conclude anything about pay levels for those left from these average numbers.

Average hours follows similar expect it's per head, so it doesn't capture hours of work lost by people who've been fired, it only captures changes in those still employed. So this statistic cannot be used to judge whether there's been a fall in the total hours of work available to be done in a sector.

ParkRunner

nesf wrote: »

Look, just no. Scofflaw pointed this out but it needs to be spelled out for people I think.

There are two ways that average pay increases for a large group. The first is people get an actual pay rise, the other is lower paid people can be fired. Now, given the rather large increase in unemployment recently no one with any sense would opt for the former explanation over the latter. Most companies work on a first in, last out basis with redundancies so the lower paid more recent employees will be the most likely to be let go. This effect will can cause there to an increase in the average hourly pay even if there's been a pay cut taken by other people under certain circumstances! You cannot conclude anything about pay levels for those left from these average numbers.

Average hours follows similar expect it's per head, so it doesn't capture hours of work lost by people who've been fired, it only captures changes in those still employed. So this statistic cannot be used to judge whether there's been a fall in the total hours of work available to be done in a sector.

I agree with you, the average pay seems to be rising in the private sector because people at the lower end are simply being let go to fend for themselves. The average hours are also calculated from those left in employment.
The public sector pay bill is being reduced, maybe too slowly, but it is being reduced with the mass exodus of the higher paid taking early retirement which personally seems like a fairer way to me.
The conclusion from the statistics would appear to be that some are only taking minor cuts, while others are losing their jobs completely in the private sector. I havent had a proper chance to look at all the stats yet though..

seclachi

namenotavailabl wrote: »

Couldn't the case then be made that the taxpayer DOES in fact -to a certain extent- pay for the private sector, since a proportion of the 'recycled' money in the hands of the private sector is sourced from the Irish taxpayer?

You dont even have to think about it in such a roundabout way, many parts of the public sector are essential for the services and the infrastructure they provide to the private sector (Cash is only half the picture really). It does feel like some people thing the public sector are useless leeches who flick paper clips all day, but they are a critical part of society. Many however need to realise they cant escape the trends that effect the rest of society, and that a 20 billion euro hole cant be filled without some drastic cutbacks.

_Kooli_ wrote: »

Salary increased over 300% in less than 10 years.
Last year the company i worked for opted to give us a 10% pay cut.
Most of us just left and got jobs elsewhere for more money.

Some were scared and stayed and took the pay cut.
Some were not good enough (their own fault for not making themselves more employable) to get jobs elsewhere so stayed and took the pay cut.
All who stayed are constantly giving out about the public sector or anyone else they can think of. Jealousy, i think.

My current situation.
€100k plus

24 - 27 days holidays. depending on bonus days.
Nice big salary bonus too.
7.5% pension from my employer. I pay another 20%.
Monthly meal allowance.
Monthly Mortgage/rent allowance.


Im sick listening to people taking out their own lack of employablity on others, like the public sector. Obviously it make them feel better by attacking others, instead of just taking the bull by the horns and working at their own situation.

I wouldnt mind your job, not only does it pay well with good holidays, but you get to dish out your judgement to the lowly peons.

nesf

EF wrote: »

The conclusion from the statistics would appear to be that some are only taking minor cuts, while others are losing their jobs completely in the private sector.

No it does not mean that! Some could be taking no cuts in basic pay and others large cuts. Some areas could be seeing massive reductions in hours available and others little reduction.

The Private Sector is huge and is very heterogeneous. Some parts of it will be hit extremely hard while others won't be. You're seeing average numbers here, which means that without more data you can't draw any conclusions about what size wage cuts are going on because the sector isn't one big lump that behaves the same all over.

nesf

Oh for ****s sake.

Right guys the report is available here: http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf

Yes, in Industry, Quarter 2 2009 versus Quarter 2 2008 shows a 4.2% rise but Q2 2009 versus Q1 2009 shows a 4.8% drop. We're seeing average wages falling after the initial layoffs at the start of the year caused average wages to rise.

Christ, and they don't even bother to mention this in the newspaper article.

Scofflaw

nesf wrote: »

Oh for ****s sake.

Right guys the report is available here: http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/earnings/current/earnlabcosts.pdf

Yes, in Industry, Quarter 2 2009 versus Quarter 2 2008 shows a 4.2% rise but Q2 2009 versus Q1 2009 shows a 4.8% drop. We're seeing average wages falling after the initial layoffs at the start of the year caused average wages to rise.

Christ, and they don't even bother to mention this in the newspaper article.

Well, you know, newspapers...full of journalists. That's probably the problem right there.

amused,
Scofflaw

nesf

Scofflaw wrote: »

Well, you know, newspapers...full of journalists. That's probably the problem right there.

amused,
Scofflaw

When you dig into the numbers a bit more it gets interesting too. Average hours worked increased Q1-Q2, showing the effects of layoffs and more work being dumped on those who were kept, though since their pay didn't go up it caused hourly pay to go down again etc.

Looks like the IT just cut and paste the introductory paragraph from the report without bothering to do any analysis for the reader.

Scofflaw

nesf wrote: »

When you dig into the numbers a bit more it gets interesting too. Average hours worked increased Q1-Q2, showing the effects of layoffs and more work being dumped on those who were kept, though since their pay didn't go up it caused hourly pay to go down again etc.

Looks like the IT just cut and paste the introductory paragraph from the report without bothering to do any analysis for the reader.

Sadly, that kind of thing happens all the time with statistics - indeed, it happens all the time with almost any data.

cordially,
Scofflaw

ardmacha

Looks like the IT just cut and paste the introductory paragraph from the report without bothering to do any analysis for the reader.

What else do you expect from a private sector organ?