Sunday 1 March 2009

Pay Packet Apartheid

There were moans from public sector employees last year when the government demanded that they accept below inflation pay rises. However, as they nogotiated long term deals over 3 years in some sectors at below the then rate of inflation. These were still between 2% and 3% per annum so we now find that the public sector, with their greater job security, have also gained an advantage in salary over those in the private sector.



With the retail price index measuring inflation at 0.1% for January and trending to dip in negative figures and deflation when last months figures are announced later this month private sector employees are finding their salaries frozen. Some are even finding they have to take a 20% cut and a four day week as their companies try and economis through the recession. Not the case with some of the public sector employees whose Unions tend to seal them into longer term deals but even look for wiggle room on an annual basis.

I intimated earlier it was bad enough that a company that the Government had a 68% share in who had a £177,777 loss per employee*. Now we have the Government who insisted in prudent pay increases for the employees over whom they had some control finding that the long term deals are far outstretching those that many private sector employees can expect.

*That is based on the loss divided by the number of employees as reported in 2007.

No comments:

Post a Comment