I see from reports that gross pay is up 3.2% up to June, but does not take account of pension or income levy - so what is the point of this report? It also says the figures do not include the health sector - so again - what is the point of this report if it does not include all areas?
By definition taxes and levies aren't included in gross pay figures.
When indignation is expressed that some workers aren't "sharing the pain" these will also be gross income figures.
People tend to pick whatever figure suits their own agenda.
I find it amusing that the CSO keep turning out these reports that undermine the positions of their own unions. Totally professional, hard accurate unarguable data. Know a couple really smart maths grads employed there so I'm not surprised.
I've no idea why health is excluded as it often is from reports, but perhaps there's a lag since they've such a unwieldy pay system.
The scary thing is that if the govt reduces public sector pay by 7% as has been proposed they will only really be 3.8% lower than what was being paid in June 2008.
The reason I asked the question is again - what good are these figures - as we all know "gross" bears very little relationship to net wages - so what's the point in them?
Gross figures are important even if not the full picture, you'll note when unions talk of pension levies it's invariably the gross figures they use for instance, so they're clearly big fans.
Yes, because overtime can be so substantial in the Garda plus the prison service, they often publish two series of data, one with, one without, to give a better idea of underlying salaries.
About the health sector, I suspect its because there are so many HSE regions, agencies, voluntary hospitals, etc., plus lots of different payroll systems.