Public sector employees paid 15pc more than in private sector
PUBLIC sector workers are paid nearly 15 per cent more on average than those in the private sector – £16.28 an hour compared to £14.16 – according to a report from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published yesterday.
Yet the gap has become smaller in recent years. “The average pay difference in favour of the public sector has narrowed since the year 2010, which in part reflects the restraints on public sector pay over this period,” said the ONS.
The difference is due to both the size of public sector employers – generally larger and therefore tending to pay higher wages – and the higher levels of skill and university degrees that are often required in the public sector.
However, when stripping out the influence of larger employers that pay higher wages the ONS found that the private sector actually has weekly pay rates of between 1.3 and 2.4 per cent higher than the public sector.