Public sector earning more than private, but less than last month

Lies, damned lies and statistics

Public sector workers, even excluding financial services staff, earn more than those in the private sector.

Figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) show that average total pay including bonuses in the private sector was £451 a week in July 2010 while in the public sector it was £464. Excluding financial services from the figures still gave the public sector average wages of £458 a week.

But the figures show no big changes. In the previous set of figures for June the ONS found average total pay in the private sector, including bonuses, was static at £451 a week while public sector staff pocketed £470.

In terms of total employment, public sector jobs fell by 22,000 in the second quarter of 2010 to 6.051 million. Central government lost 16,000 staff and local government 7,000. Employment in the private during the same three months grew 308,000.

Research earlier this month found the largest public sector employer - the NHS - added 66,000 jobs in the first quarter of the year giving it a total of 1.626 million.

From May to July 2010 there were 29.16 million in work, an employment rate of 70.7 per cent. The unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent - or 2.47 million people.

Total pay, including bonuses, was up 1.5 per cent on last year - pay, excluding bonuses was up 1.8 per cent on last year.

A comparison of unemployment figures tracked against GDP shows that unemployment is less severe now than it was at the same point in the economic recovery after the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s. More on this here.

The rest of the ONS numbers can be downloaded as pdfs here. ®