Vast Majority Of Good Jobs Are Government

[aa3]

I was looking at the top 20 employers in areas of the UK. And in some areas there is like 1 major serious corporation, a number of big box retailers and grocers paying minimum wage, and the majority of the list was different government bodies.

NHS, K-12 schooling, local government authorities, a big military base, 2 universities, police, prison, fire service, emergency service, recreation facilities, etc.. What is known as the 'private sector' is usually tiny businesses like a doctors office or law office which is funded by the state. Or like a building contractor or IT contractor who does work on government offices.

The driver of the economy is when those paycheques for the state hit peoples accounts. In an area of say half a million including retirees and children, we're talking like 100k government jobs. All of them on jobs with some real buying power.. when the paycheques hit their accounts they go out and spend it.. and that essentially is the UK economy like it or not.

When I hear some people talk about private sector job creation, and the private sector picking up the slack if the government cuts back.. I think they are living in like 1965. When big industrial corporations employed into the millions of Brit workers. Like in days when some steel complexes had over 20,000 employees at one site. When auto supply chains and assembly had 50k unionized workers in an area.

Back then yeah to get demand going if you cut some taxes, got credit really moving with lower interest rates.. it was conceivable big corps could step in with some serious hiring in good stable jobs.

[OnlyMe]

The tick is larger than the host?

That is the problem then, they will both die if this is not resolved, simple biology.

[robo1968]

I was looking at the top 20 employers in areas of the UK. And in some areas there is like 1 major serious corporation, a number of big box retailers and grocers paying minimum wage, and the majority of the list was different government bodies.

NHS, K-12 schooling, local government authorities, a big military base, 2 universities, police, prison, fire service, emergency service, recreation facilities, etc.. What is known as the 'private sector' is usually tiny businesses like a doctors office or law office which is funded by the state. Or like a building contractor or IT contractor who does work on government offices.

The driver of the economy is when those paycheques for the state hit peoples accounts. In an area of say half a million including retirees and children, we're talking like 100k government jobs. All of them on jobs with some real buying power.. when the paycheques hit their accounts they go out and spend it.. and that essentially is the UK economy like it or not.

When I hear some people talk about private sector job creation, and the private sector picking up the slack if the government cuts back.. I think they are living in like 1965. When big industrial corporations employed into the millions of Brit workers. Like in days when some steel complexes had over 20,000 employees at one site. When auto supply chains and assembly had 50k unionized workers in an area.

Back then yeah to get demand going if you cut some taxes, got credit really moving with lower interest rates.. it was conceivable big corps could step in with some serious hiring in good stable jobs.

If you think we can't get out of this by being entrepreneurial then there is no solution, sure the Government can assist that but one thing is certain the last government didn't and something has to be done soon

What would you do? Carry on borrowing til you can't borrow any more?

Not being able to get credit anymore is a fallacy, I got some unsecured credit for a friends' business the other day but the banks aren't daft, if they don't think they'll get their money back then they won't lend it.

Just like people moaning about large deposits, it's not a credit squeeze, they are simply hedging against a potential loss with the borrowers money rather than theirs

Edited September 24, 2010 by robo1968

[SarahBell]

The tick is larger than the host?

That is the problem then, they will both die if this is not resolved, simple biology.

+1

But it's getting mr 35k a year for sitting on his **** in a council office to understand that.

I think anyone who doesn't deal with the public on a daily basis should be let go. No compo, no massive payoffs... just bare minimum (The example yesterday of people being offered 70k to go is shocking)

[silver panda]

The driver of the economy is when those paycheques for the state hit peoples accounts. In an area of say half a million including retirees and children, we're talking like 100k government jobs. All of them on jobs with some real buying power.. when the paycheques hit their accounts they go out and spend it.. and that essentially is the UK economy like it or not.

And that's why we're drowning in debt and have a record trade deficit.

And why things will be changed - whether people want it or not.

And it's not that big a change - just a reversal of the last decade.

[noodle doodle]

+1

But it's getting mr 35k a year for sitting on his **** in a council office to understand that.

I think anyone who doesn't deal with the public on a daily basis should be let go. No compo, no massive payoffs... just bare minimum (The example yesterday of people being offered 70k to go is shocking)

So you'd sack say every university researcher and hospital lab technician? Plus how would the remainder get paid if there were no back-office staff? Poorly thought through, even for this site.

Edited September 24, 2010 by noodle doodle

[robo1968]

So you'd sack say every university researcher and hospital lab technician? Plus how would the remainder get paid if there were no back-office staff? Poorly thought through, even for this site.

Where did Sarah mention university researcher and hospital lab technician?

[The Masked Tulip]

200 billion of QE went to banks and only bankers got richer.

200 billion spent on the infrastructure of the UK - high speed rail links, modernisation of rolling stock and buying from a British company and not a foreign one, investment in nuclear power stations, wind farms, green industries, high tech industries.

Can you imagine how 200 billion would have stimulated the economy and inmproved this country if - if - it had been directed in the right direction?

The irony of Brown is that the man was, IMPO, such a marxist 'Big State' control-freak but he had totally caved in to believing that only private sector companies could do the above. The more I think about him the more I think was a complete disaster he was for this country and how he actually had any idea other than some, well, I'd better not say what I truly think of him and his kind in so-called New Labour.

[Zngland]

I was looking at the top 20 employers in areas of the UK. And in some areas there is like 1 major serious corporation, a number of big box retailers and grocers paying minimum wage, and the majority of the list was different government bodies.

NHS, K-12 schooling, local government authorities, a big military base, 2 universities, police, prison, fire service, emergency service, recreation facilities, etc.. What is known as the 'private sector' is usually tiny businesses like a doctors office or law office which is funded by the state. Or like a building contractor or IT contractor who does work on government offices.

The driver of the economy is when those paycheques for the state hit peoples accounts. In an area of say half a million including retirees and children, we're talking like 100k government jobs. All of them on jobs with some real buying power.. when the paycheques hit their accounts they go out and spend it.. and that essentially is the UK economy like it or not.

When I hear some people talk about private sector job creation, and the private sector picking up the slack if the government cuts back.. I think they are living in like 1965. When big industrial corporations employed into the millions of Brit workers. Like in days when some steel complexes had over 20,000 employees at one site. When auto supply chains and assembly had 50k unionized workers in an area.

Back then yeah to get demand going if you cut some taxes, got credit really moving with lower interest rates.. it was conceivable big corps could step in with some serious hiring in good stable jobs.

Status quo is unsustainable, so we know the problem and thus the solution, how to do it without economic savagery is the dilema.

Imho protectionism is the only way followed by a complete overhaul of the role and acknowledgement of the capabilities[lack of] of the State.

[Olebrum]

And that's why we're drowning in debt and have a record trade deficit.

And why things will be changed - whether people want it or not.

And it's not that big a change - just a reversal of the last decade.

The last decade.

Like this wasn't going on waaaaaaaaaay before that. The world didn't begin with

the Tony and Gordon show.

[tim123]

Where did Sarah mention university researcher and hospital lab technician?

"I think anyone who doesn't deal with the public on a daily basis should be let go"

tim

Edited September 24, 2010 by tim123

[robo1968]

200 billion of QE went to banks and only bankers got richer.

200 billion spent on the infrastructure of the UK - high speed rail links, modernisation of rolling stock and buying from a British company and not a foreign one, investment in nuclear power stations, wind farms, green industries, high tech industries.

Can you imagine how 200 billion would have stimulated the economy and inmproved this country if - if - it had been directed in the right direction?

The irony of Brown is that the man was, IMPO, such a marxist 'Big State' control-freak but he had totally caved in to believing that only private sector companies could do the above. The more I think about him the more I think was a complete disaster he was for this country and how he actually had any idea other than some, well, I'd better not say what I truly think of him and his kind in so-called New Labour.

Therein lies the problem that most Labour supporters fail to grasp, even the Labour MP Caroline Flint admitted on QT last night how Labour got the Public Sector wages wrong.... what more do these people need as proof?

[robo1968]

The last decade.

Like this wasn't going on waaaaaaaaaay before that. The world didn't begin with

the Tony and Gordon show.

Try reading the stats on 50% Public sector pay rises in the last decade

[SarahBell]

So you'd sack say every university researcher and hospital lab technician? Plus how would the remainder get paid if there were no back-office staff? Poorly thought through, even for this site.

I was mainly thinking about councils tbh.

You could cut huge numbers of jobs.

Each council doesn't need it's own payroll/library managers/deskbound scheme planners etc

Does each hospital need a payroll section/hr/pr?

[robo1968]

You people just don't understand that we live in a mixed economy.

Because it is a mixed economy the public sector generates wealth by creating opportunities for businesses or making the streets safe for business to take place or keeping the population healthy to allow them to work. The police force allows shop keepers to run their shops without fear.

The public sector is a net generator of wealth.

God this forum is full of idiots who have read one to many Ayn Rand novels.

Mixed to the wrong ratio unfortunately

Before you go calling anyone who write what you don't want to read an idiot perhaps you should go and look up 'deficit' and debt' in the dictionary

[R K]

I'v seen the future and it's cupcakes.

Cupcake retailers will spring up all over the land like fields of daffodils in springtime driving us forward to our glorious new Misean future.

[swissy_fit]

You people just don't understand that we live in a mixed economy.

Because it is a mixed economy the public sector generates wealth by creating opportunities for businesses or making the streets safe for business to take place or keeping the population healthy to allow them to work. The police force allows shop keepers to run their shops without fear.

The public sector is a net generator of wealth.

God this forum is full of idiots who have read one to many Ayn Rand novels.

This will become true again once the public sector has had the fat trimmed off and the gastric band surgery.

We all need the public sector, but not the way it is. I fear that many of the real leeches will manage to save their jobs at the expense of frontline teachers/nurses/police etc in the initial phases, but longterm that will reverse.

[robo1968]

I'v seen the future and it's cupcakes.

Cupcake retailers will spring up all over the land like fields of daffodils in springtime driving us forward to our glorious new Misean future.

Damn and I wanted my own clipboard and blackberry,

[red11]

+1

But it's getting mr 35k a year for sitting on his **** in a council office to understand that.

I think anyone who doesn't deal with the public on a daily basis should be let go. No compo, no massive payoffs... just bare minimum (The example yesterday of people being offered 70k to go is shocking)

I think some back office staff are always essential, but there are a great number of non-jobs that could be removed with little effect on public services.

[Injin]

I think some back office staff are always essential, but there are a great number of non-jobs that could be removed with little effect on public services.

Think what you want, it can't be afforded and is over.

The public sector did everything in Soviet Russia as well, OP doesn't mean anything.

[bogbrush]

You people just don't understand that we live in a mixed economy.

Because it is a mixed economy the public sector generates wealth by creating opportunities for businesses or making the streets safe for business to take place or keeping the population healthy to allow them to work. The police force allows shop keepers to run their shops without fear.

The public sector is a net generator of wealth.

God this forum is full of idiots who have read one to many Ayn Rand novels.

This is so wrong.

Where I believe you are mistaken is in identifying some activities which, if the state didn't do them you believe there would be a private demand. Fine, that's a point but you don't test the theory by giving people a choice and you're left assuming or hoping that these activities really would be paid for by choice.

But your largest mistake is to imagine that the public sector could ever be a net generator of wealth. The reality is that 100% of it's funding is extracted from people doing real wealth generation by skimming (tax) and even if SOME of its activity returns value it is absurd to imagine it provides a full return of value.

[South Lorne]

You people just don't understand that we live in a mixed economy.

Because it is a mixed economy the public sector generates wealth by creating opportunities for businesses or making the streets safe for business to take place or keeping the population healthy to allow them to work. The police force allows shop keepers to run their shops without fear.

The public sector is a net generator of wealth.

God this forum is full of idiots who have read one to many Ayn Rand novels.

...the public sector is funded by the private sector ...the size of your tax generation dictates the size of civil service / public sector unless you live in a communist state ....North Korea is a pure example ....

[Ponzi]

The public sector is a net generator of wealth

[goldbug9999]

The public sector is a net generator of wealth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

Edited September 24, 2010 by goldbug9999

[Si1]

speaking for the Leeds area, there seem a lot of public sector staff in mediocre paper pushing positions being paid high salaries. Even front line staff seem to be paid at least reasonably well - eg teachers getting paid more than salaried solicitors etc

house prices surely seem knackered here, especially, as, although there IS a private sector, salaries seem rarely above 30k, except maybe in sales, and I am speaking about grad engineers, IT bods, lawyers