With a public sector strike planned for Wednesday, the timing of the release by the Government of a statistic comparing public and private sector pay has been carefully stage-managed (News, November 24).
It was disappointing that the Belfast Telegraph did not also refer to another Government report, published on July 5, that explains how difficult it is to make comparisons between the two sectors 'because of the differences in the types of job and characteristics of employees'.
Essentially, comparing the public sector with the private sector is not comparing like with like.
There is a higher proportion of higher-skilled and professional jobs in the public sector than the private sector and more lower-skilled jobs in the private sector.
Indeed, many lower-skilled jobs in the public sector have been outsourced to the private sector.
When similar jobs in each sector are compared, private sector pay tends to be higher. For example, a graduate in the private sector earns 5.7% more than a graduate in the public sector.
July's report points out that the data used to compare pay in each sector does not take into account bonus payments (worth £20bn last year in the private sector), company cars and private health insurance, all of which increase the value of private-sector pay.
Source: Belfasttelegraph.co.uk, Monday 28th November 2011
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