17/09/2011: QNHS 2Q 2011 - public sector v private sector trends

This is the second post on the data from QNHS for 2Q 2011.

Table below summarises data from QNHS results, showing changes for specific sectors of the economy as well as core figures for overall employment, labor force and unemployment.
Using the data from core QNHS we can compute decomposition of employment pool into three broadly defined subsectors, as shown below. The core trends here are the following:
Ratio of private sector employees to those employed in public sector now stands at ca 2.76 private sector workers per 1 public sector employee. Sacred yet? That ratio rose from 2.73 in (an improvement, in fact) qoq between 1Q 2011 and 2Q 2011, but is down from 2.78 in 2Q 2010 and 3.00 in 2Q 2009. In other words, there are fewer private sector employees now per each public sector employee than in either 2010 or 2009 or indeed in 2008 and so on.

The same is true across the specific sectors. There are more people in employment in education per private sector worker now than 2007-2010, there are more people employed in public administration per private sector worker now than in 2007-2010, there are more people employed in healthcare per person employed in private sector today than in any moment since 1Q 2004. This, after the allegedly savage cuts in numbers in public sector employment.

QNHS also now reports EHECS-based public sector employment estimates. Table 1.1 below (reproduced from QNHS release) shows the estimates of public sector employment broken down by the different high level areas within the public sector. I've added the red line below showing proportional allocation of employment - the number of private sector workers per each public sector worker. This only slightly differs from the same metric I derived above based solely on QNHS. Again, there are, broadly speaking, 2.82 persons working in private sector per each 1 person in public sector. A year ago, there were 2.86, 2 years ago, there were 2.85... savage cuts folks? Not exactly. Looks more like continued steady burden on private sector from supporting public sector employment.
That's a tough thing to swallow, folks. Per CSO: "The number of employees in the public sector showed no change over the year to Q2 2011. However, the employment figures for this quarter include 5,300 additional temporary Census field staff who were employed during the periods covering Q1 and Q2 2011. When these staff are excluded there was a fall of 1.3% in employment over the year to Q2 2011." Give it a thought, folks - a fall of 1.3% when unemployment rose 3.93% and underemployment went up 20.89% and employment fell 2.1% and private sector employment declined 2.4%.

"The number of employees in the public sector has continued to fall over the last three years with a total decrease of 24,600 up to Q2 2011 when excluding census field staff." Drama unfolds? Let's check that table above. Since 4Q 2008 through 2Q 2011:

• Private sector employment is down 12.9%
• Civil service employment is down 7.5%
• Semi-states employment is down 8.5%
• Total public sector ex-semi-states employment is down 5.5%
• Total public sector employment is down 5.9%
  

Draw your own conclusions as to whether the Croke Park is delivering or not.

Economics 21/11/2009: Public v private sector income inequality is up, again

Updated images files

There are many claims flying about our bearded men of Siptu and Ictu nowadays. None are more offensive than their claims that private sector has not been hit hard in terms of wages and earnings by the current crisis. Well, thanks to CSO's inability to collect timely and frequent data, we had to sit back for some time, tolerating these unionist claims. Alas, data for Q2 2009 is starting to show that those of us who said that private sector is suffering earnings declines while public sector is basking in the sunshine of rising earnings were right. Here are the numbers:

Table 1 reports actual average weekly earnings based on CSO data sets. Yep, that's right -public servants make more money than the average managerial, professional and clerical grade in every other sector except financial services and insurance. Note, I separated electricity, water supply and waste management sector into quasi-public sector because it is heavily dominated by massively inflated earnings in ESB and other state monopolies.

Next, consider average weekly earnings for professional and clerical grades and for public sector overall. The reason for this is that our unionists keep on droning that public sector workers are so superior to the average worker in the rest of economy that they must be compared with higher grades. Forgive my disbelief that, say, CIE's bus drivers are so productive and so highly skilled that they should be benchmarked against branch managers of Irish banks, but let us indulge the Siptu/Ictu crowd:
Yes, it says that: between Q2 2008 and Q2 2009 more categories of public sector workers started to earn in excess of private sector average earnings for managers, professionals and clerical workers. And this is at the time when Jack O'Connor and the rest of Unions' leaders are talking about rising tide of income inequality (oh, give me a sec and I will get back to that concept).

Now, chart above shows that wages have been rising across all (but one) public sector sub-sectors. Average public sector earnings are up 3.2% in a year to the end of Q2 2009, while average private sector wages are down 6.8% over the same time - a swing of 10 percentage points. Happy times for CPSU and the rest of the unions pack.

Of course, years ago, when we had fast growing private sector wages, the unions, CORI, the rest of the social pillar fringe were loudly bemoaning the rising tide of income inequality. So what can we say now? Check out the following table:
Yeps, that's right, applying Socialists' faulty economic logic, last year our Trade Unions' policies have led to a rise in income inequality between private and public sector in favor of higher income to public sector.

If anything, the latest CSO data suggests that the next month's Budget 2010 should open with a significant across the board cut in public sector wages by at least 10% (to simply undo income inequality that has been generated since 2008), and only then proceed to all other cuts. Have a pre-Budget Addendum on Public Sector Earnings Inequality first, before you cut education, health and even social welfare, Minister.