Public sector workers 'paid more'

Public sector workers earn on average 17% more per hour

Public sector workers are better paid than their private sector counterparts, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has said.

Since 2001, public sector wages have risen the fastest, the CIPD found.

As a result, public sector workers now earn 17% more per hour on average than private sector workers.

"The perception that public sector workers are poorly paid... perhaps needs some revision," John Philpott, chief executive of the CIPD, said.

Job prospects

On Friday, official statistics will reveal how many new public sector jobs have been created in the past year.

The CIPD predicted that the figures will show that as many as 75,000 posts have been created in the public sector over the past year.

In total, more than 650,000 new public sector jobs have been created since the late 1990s.

Since 2001, the public sector has been the main driver of employment growth in the UK.

Role reversal

The rise in wages and the number of public sector jobs bucks the historic trend.

According to the report, in the past public sector workers have often been playing catch-up with the private sector over wages and job prospects.

However, of late, the roles have been reversed with public sector workers doing better.

In 2004, public sector workers earned 3.5% more per a week than their private sector counterparts.

On an hourly basis, public sector workers earned 17% more on average.

But amongst the top 25% of earners, those employed in the private sector still enjoyed the higher wages.