300,000 jobs in public sector face the axe

Harry_Powell

custardy wrote: »

exactly my point,I mean rent can easily be over £1K a month alone
so if you are talking about someone on the £20K salary area,it could actually cost more money than keeping the job

I love the fact that public sector workers admit their jobs are just the Dole by another name. Very revealing!

However, let's check out their assertion that it's cheaper to keep them in work...

Median salary for a public sector worker, according to national statistics is £28k. This works out as the following:

PAYE/NI Net Salary Tax Calculator Results

Salary breakdown for a salary of £28,000, with a tax code of 647L;
Fiscal Year 2010/2011

Income Tax (PAYE)...........£4,304
National Insurance (N.I)....£2,450
Total taxes.....................£6,755
INCOME........................£21,245


Annual Salary.....£28,000
Employers N.I.....£2,851
TOTAL COST TO EMPLOYER.......£30,851

Final Salary Pension - The CBI calculates that this pension promise is worth, on average, 26% of every public-sector worker's salary. This therefore equates to £7280 per annum retirement fund for public sector workers.

Therefore, it will save the government £24,000 per annum (salary - taxes the employee pays), plus the £7280 that the government wont have to find each year for a pension, which over a 20 year retirement could save the country £145600.

I'm sorry but the figures just don't bear out the suggestion that it's cheaper to keep public sector workers in jobs than on the dole. It's a ridiculous assertion!

Old_Slaphead

princeofpounds wrote: »

Well we can estimate quite roughly how good state pensions are. Here is a worked example for the NHS...

Assume a 'special class' employee (i.e. someone who joined before 95). They can retire at the age of 55, but let's say they work until 60 to get their maximum entitlement (40 years). Let's also assume a salary of 30k, which isn't far off the national average for public sector workers and is a nice round number.

The calculator below indicates that the retiree gets 45k lump sum plus 15k per year (index linked!)for life.
http://www.nhspa.gov.uk/PDweb/PensionCalculators/StandardPension/index.htm

So how much is this worth in today's money? Well, the 45k is easy, but the annuity required a bit more maths.

Thankfully best buy annuity rates are published which means that the private pension providers have gone out and done the maths for us (so I can spare you the annuity valuation calculation!), and on the FT website I can see that a single life annuity, RPI-linked, for a 60 year old man is 3.58%.

So to replicate the £15k per year on a commercial basis you would need a capital sum of 15/0.0358 = £419000. Add on the 45k and you are looking at £464k.

Four hundred and sixty-four thousand pounds. For someone who only reached a salary of £30k in their last three years of work (meaning their career-average earnings in today's money was probably much lower).

This is more than the cost of an average house, in fact it's nearer the cost of two average houses! You should see what the calculations looks like for early retirees with high salaries, like police and military personnel.

I've made this point many times POP.

Even the lowest paid in public services with 40 years service have notional pension pots of £300,000. Virtually no-one outside the Final Salary regime can hope to have anything like that amount.

I understand that many police authorities are now spending more on pensions than actual policing!

lemonjelly

Problem is that this debate isn't debated on facts. Posters like bendix, or donaldtramp post vitriolic stuff about their taxes as though the money still belongs to them (it doesn't!) & rant & rave about how good the private sector is blah blah blah.

Trouble is, the private sector, consumerism, capitalism, greed & reckless lending & borrowing which was unsustainable caused the economic situation we are in. Essentially, the private sector.

It now seems like the public sector will be paying the bill. The private sector will get off lightly, & with the tories in, will get tax breaks, protecting them even further.

Personally, my feeling is that the private sector should be bailing out the country. It is their mess.

I feel for anyone when they lose their job. To me a job isn't just about a paypacket, it is about contact, people, being active & interested, personal development, learning, improving personally & professionally, learning new skills, and so on.

We'd struggle without either side. But the vitriol that public sector workers get is ridiculous, unjustified & borderline discriminatory. Some of the nastiness coming across on here makes me wonder if people are trying to deflect attention from the shortcomings of their own lives onto others. Many of these debates become very disrespectful towards posters. Unneccessary.

Alan_Cross

I imagine that those in MSE with a love of all things Tory and a hatred of Trades Unions will firmly applaud the way in which private sector employers have ridden roughshod over the needs of the labour force for something like the reasonably secure future which the bosses ensure for themselves.

This is, after all, a firmly Thatcherite attitude to the 'little people' which Labour continued and is to be praised to the rafters, right?

How hysterically funny it is to see the right wing mafiosi here choking on their own 'principles'.

marklv

kriss_boy wrote: »

Is it really a good pension nowadays?

My dads paid 6% of his salary for 40 years to get a lump sum of around 30K and a pension of around £800 per month. Shall I tell you what my relatives in the NHS and police are getting? Try multiplying the lump sum 5 fold just for starters.

Sorry to be brutal, but your dad should have contributed 18-20% of salary instead, and don't begrudge what public sector workers get; most public sector workers get pay freezes and no fringe benefits other than the pension. No private health, no company car, etc.

To get a £150k lump sum in the old civil service pension scheme (now closed to new entrants) you would need to have earned £100k a year in your final salary, so what you say is utter bo**ocks, unless all your public sector employed relatives were very senior. NHS and police pensions are not dissimilar.

Harry_Powell

marklv wrote: »

Sorry to be brutal, but your dad should have contributed 18-20% of salary instead, and don't begrudge what public sector workers get; most public sector workers get pay freezes and no fringe benefits other than the pension. No private health, no company car, etc.

Most private sector employees don't get fringe benefits like private health, company car, etc. Why you know, some don't even get a company pension, let alone one that is 100% safe from the vagaries of the stockmarket.

Try again marklv.

marklv

lemonjelly wrote: »

Problem is that this debate isn't debated on facts. Posters like bendix, or donaldtramp post vitriolic stuff about their taxes as though the money still belongs to them (it doesn't!) & rant & rave about how good the private sector is blah blah blah.

Trouble is, the private sector, consumerism, capitalism, greed & reckless lending & borrowing which was unsustainable caused the economic situation we are in. Essentially, the private sector.

It now seems like the public sector will be paying the bill. The private sector will get off lightly, & with the tories in, will get tax breaks, protecting them even further.

Personally, my feeling is that the private sector should be bailing out the country. It is their mess.

I feel for anyone when they lose their job. To me a job isn't just about a paypacket, it is about contact, people, being active & interested, personal development, learning, improving personally & professionally, learning new skills, and so on.

We'd struggle without either side. But the vitriol that public sector workers get is ridiculous, unjustified & borderline discriminatory. Some of the nastiness coming across on here makes me wonder if people are trying to deflect attention from the shortcomings of their own lives onto others. Many of these debates become very disrespectful towards posters. Unneccessary.

My feelings exactly.

I suspect that the current government will eventually collapse. Many Tory and Lib Dem backbenchers are not happy and sooner or later there will be a rebellion.

marklv

Harry_Powell wrote: »

Most private sector employees don't get fringe benefits like private health, company car, etc. Why you know, some don't even get a company pension, let alone one that is 100% safe from the vagaries of the stockmarket.

Try again marklv.

Depends on the sector. In my sector they certainly do get these benefits. Stop making generalised comments about the private sector - you bl**dy well know that I refer to the professional part of the workforce, not the blue collar lot. The public sector is mostly office based and professional, so when you compare you should do like for like.

Harry_Powell

marklv wrote: »

Depends on the sector. In my sector they certainly do get these benefits. Stop making generalised comments about the private sector - you bl**dy well know that I refer to the professional part of the workforce, not the blue collar lot. The public sector is mostly office based and professional, so when you compare you should do like for like.

You guys need to make your minds up. One minute you're talking about low paid public sector employees who will cost as much to keep on the dole as it costs to employ. The next minute (when your argument changes), you're all professionals who would be driving BMW's and sitting in BUPA clinics if you worked in the private sector.

I also take issue with your idea that 'professionals' in the private sector all get company cars and BUPA. They don't.

JasonLVC

marklv wrote: »

Depends on the sector. In my sector they certainly do get these benefits. Stop making generalised comments about the private sector - you bl**dy well know that I refer to the professional part of the workforce, not the blue collar lot. The public sector is mostly office based and professional, so when you compare you should do like for like.

Sorry Marklv, you cannot accuse someone of making generalised comments and then, without a hint of irony, then make a generalised comment.

"The public sector is mostly office based and professional".....No it isn't. The public sector consists of pen pushers and administrators, call centre staff, front of desk staff at job centres, the staff at local councils who process invoices, collect the rent, mow the parks and clear up dog muck, police back office staff, court clerks, smoking cessation officers, H&S advisors, etc. there are also some professionals such as surveyors, accountants and lawyers as well.