WTF?! Those of you that voted them in need to hang your heads in shame

[cricketballs]

So a couple of days after his sexist views are aired apparently public sector workers are overpaid link

How can he be so out of touch?

I don't have anything to be ashamed of, thanks OP. But do keep up the tribal politics - It's really great for democracy

Anyway, it could be worse, we could have ended up with a chancellor who doesn't believe in parliamentary democracy and wants insurrection.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=za5GYbfRmWo

When I left the civil service (many years ago) I got a 30% pay rise for doing the same job. Now, for a similar type of role in IT the going rate in the civil service is around £30k, in the private sector it's anything from £40-60k.

MrsT, your argument about teachers and nurses having to work in the public sector does not hold good. They could work in the independent sector. Nevertheless, I don't agree with the premise that only those people who couldn't walk out the door into the private sector should benefit from reasonable terms and conditions of employment.

Please don't include support staff in schools with having an amazing LG pension! Unlike teachers our pension is based on hours worked so even though we may work 'full-time' our pension is not. E.g. I have paid in 12 actual years of contributions but have only accrued 4 pension years, it depends on whether you are lucky to have a 52 week contract like caretakers, nursery nurses etc.

Disclaimer: I think the above is right, no one is ever sure.....

I work in the NHS, moved from the private sector 8 years ago and, as a teacher said upthread, my pay has remained the same but my professional costs (essential to work) have risen five-fold and my pension contribution has jumped from 9% to 12.5% so I am substantially worse off now than I would be in the private sector even though my salary may appear slightly higher

I think that part of the downward pressure on pay and downgrading of professions is linked to having more women in the profession. Teaching and medicine are heading in that direction. Nursing always was. The unspoken assumption is that the job brings a second salary into a family. It isn't particularly obvious as the whole profession is impacted.

Then Philip Hammond pretty much says it out loud.

I watched him on Marr, he didn't deny saying it he refused the answer the question. And from the wishy-washy answers he did give it was pretty clear that he did actually say it.

The pensions are a moot point. We can't live on DH's pension now. DS1 can't take his and DS2 won't be able to prop his pay up when he qualifies as a nurse next Summer.

cricketballs that ONS report looks at two studies the one which adjusts for organisation size says 1% less - it also doesn't adjust for qualifications which the study I quoted does.

Besides my point was not whether public get paid more than private but that it isn't unreasonab;e to believe - based on studies - that the public sector is holding up well.

I think MrsT is right in her approach - the private sector for teachers and medics is too small to be a genuine alternative.

As a "back office" person myself I can tell you that the pensions can easily offset any disadvantage in pay in the public sector and there is significantly more job security. I certainly would argue that terms and condition of eg accountants in public employment are worse than private. Either way it is a fluid market (at a junior level) so you could easily choose either. Really not so true of teaching or nursing.

The senior minister apparently made the comment at Tuesday’s weekly meeting of the Cabinet.

Note the word apparently!

@MrsT2007 - in all fairness most private sector employers don't want the admin/finance/tech guys who have made a career out of the public sector.

Just watched him on Marr.
Thought he came across very impressively and took the questions head on.
There's clearly a plot by Brexiteers to attack Hammond as one of the few remainers in the Cabinet.

Train drivers certainly are not overpaid, considering the sole responsibility they have to take on in an emergency situation.
Nurses are severely underpaid but it does no good to compare the two as they're completely different professions

guinea36

You won't find a public sector worker that complains about their pension. We know that it is (at the moment) very good.

However, to lump it in with pay levels is frankly a scam, public sector pensions have changed 3 or four times in the last ten years and will be changing again.

So to get the better pension, public sector workers have had their pay further reduced and in real terms or getting paid less.

Similarly, workers are underpaid if the employer can't get the quality and quantity of staff they want at the rates of pay they are offering.

Given the teacher recruitment and retention crisis, that would mean that teachers are woefully underpaid, in particular maths and physics teachers.
However I don't think that pay is the only reason for the crisis (although I'd obviously happily accept a pay rise over another year of real terms pay cuts).

I imagine some public sector workers are overpaid, due to seniority. I.e. The number of years the individual has been in the same job or with the same employer.

For example, my dh did a job in the private sector, which he left in 1997, his starting salary was just over 11k. He stayed there a little over 3 years and by the time he left, he was being paid 16k. He tells me the same job these days goes for around 18k. We bought our first house for 47k in 1994, now the same house is worth around 240k. So house prices have exploded, unlike pay.

In the private sector, I think it is far easier to slash pay or offer redundancy. This is a serious problem in the NHS because of protectionism and don't think Philip Hammond was talking about those, who are underpaid.

" . . . workers are underpaid if the employer can't get the quality and quantity of staff they want at the rates of pay they are offering"

^^This. There's a massive shortage of teachers as I understand it, retention is a major major issue, and also a shortage of head teachers particularly - and nurses too I believe?

Which says very clearly to me that they are patently underpaid for the job that they are expected to do, since so very many of them leave and get other jobs elsewhere!

But many public sector workers ARE overpaid when their very generous taxpayer funded pensions are included.

Hahahahaha.

Stop it, I can't breathe.

X-post with Noble.

Obviously another answer would be to make the job more appealing in other ways (I suspect the teachers on here could come up with a few suggestions ) but even as it stands I imagine (and basic economics tells us) that substantially higher pay would encourage more teachers to stay in the profession.

If public sector workers are so overpaid, why are there so many vacancies? The biggest issue for the NHS in the South East is lack of ability to recruit. Even for top level position. No one wants to take on the jobs because the stress and pressure that come with it is not worth the money. Pay is directly linked with supply and demand.

WTF?! Those of you that voted them in need to hang your heads in shame
YABU, just because of the fact you think everyone has to agree with you, vote the same way, do everything to the way of your thinking.
I didn't vote them in, but surely you're not so arrogant to think that everyone has to hang their heads in shame for doing something you don''t agree with.

Tories think public sector workers are overpaid? In what way is this news?

Public sector pensions are a lot less generous these days and require much higher contribution levels than private sector. The 'career average' model often forces older workers out early as going part time or reducing responsibilities for whatever reason results in a dramatically smaller pension.

Anyone public or private who was in pension schemes in the defined benefit days is lucky compared to those coming after in less secure pensions. Most private companies have abandoned defined benefits, public sector have reduced their value.

Oh and train drivers are not public sector workers and the idea that what they do is not highly skilled and complex is just weird.

Fascinated to discover that some people think train drivers are public sector workers. Did the privatisation of British Rail completely pass them by?

The notable thing about teaching jobs is that, while the salary itself is on the face of it reasonably decent, if not amazing, once you divide it by the numbers of hours worked, the rate they're being paid for the job plummets. Most teachers I know are doing 70 or 80 hour weeks.

Obviously in the south east you have a shortage of public sector workers in areas like teaching, the fire service, the ambulance service, nursing etc because housing costs are so expensive. If the government wanted to address the problem without giving workers a pay rise, it could do so by finding a way of bringing housing costs down, e.g. through rent controls, levying a tax on empty properties, stopping the sale of properties in London to wealthy overseas investors, or building more public housing. For some reason, it chooses not to do any of these things.

I work in the private sector (education support staff) and up until auto enrolment came in, my employer did not contribute anything to my pension - whereas it has always contributed about 14% of the teachers' salaries into Teachers Pensions. So effectively, the teachers are public sector and I am private sector.
My pension is a defined contribution scheme; the teachers' pension is defined benefit.

So, there is quite a gulf between public and private sectors as far as pensions are concerned.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has reportedly said public sector workers are ‘overpaid’.
The senior minister apparently made the comment at Tuesday’s weekly meeting of the Cabinet.

Oh dear. It sounds like the gloves are off in the leadership battle within the Tory party so.

Wonder which cabinet minister is feedling stories to the press?

More race to the bottom arguments. The problem is people at the top of the private sector getting paid too much. They get paid huge amounts whilst exploiting the low paid in their companies like cleaners and shop workers who need tax credits to survive. This is the real scandal.

Yes people at the top of the public sector get paid well but it reflects their responsibilities and is nothing compared to the inflated private sector salaries.