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Irish public sector workers among world’s highest earners
18 July 2010 By Pat Leahy Political Editor
Ireland’s doctors, nurses and teachers are among the highest paid in the world, according to new figures that highlight the large scale of the public sector pay bill.
The figures, compiled by the National Competitiveness Council and Forfás, shows that Ireland’s specialist doctors enjoy the highest average public salaries in the world, while Irish nurses are the fourth best paid in the world.
With average salaries of about $230,000, Irish specialist doctors are paid more than twice as much as their counterparts in Germany (less than $100,000) and Finland ($110,000), and considerably more than countries such as the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway.
Many specialist doctors in Ireland also enjoy substantial private incomes.
The survey on the cost of doing business in Ireland uses figures from a wide variety of sources, including the EU, the World Bank, the Central Statistics Office and the OECD.
The figures for 2010 show that Irish nurses are paid the fourth-highest average salary ($67,000) in the OECD.
The starting salary for primary teachers in Ireland this year is 15 per cent higher than that OECD average, while the top salary for teachers is 33 per cent higher.
These figures take account of the public sector pay cuts, but not the 7.5 per cent pension levy, as many other countries also require pension contributions.
The survey shows that grocery costs remain expensive in Ireland but Irish employees have a higher purchasing power than many of their international competitors.
That means that they must work less time to buy branded consumer goods, such as a McDonald’s Big Mac (15 minutes work) or an iPod Nano (ten hours work).The average time working required among other rich countries is 22 minutes for a Big Mac and 17 hours for an iPod Nano.
Ireland has one of the highest statutory minimum wage rates in Europe. However, expressed as a percentage of the minimum wage, the Irish minimum wage is only the seventh highest in the EU.
Irish taxes on labour are also low by European standards, although the tax ‘wedge’ on labour - the total amount of tax paid by a wage earner - has risen significantly in recent years.
A married couple with a combined income of 167 per cent of the average wage has seen their tax contribution rise from 14 per cent of income to 20 per cent.
According to the report, the tax wedge is ‘‘significantly higher’’ for higher earners. For a single worker on 167 per cent of the average wage, the tax wedge has increased from 34 per cent in 2008 to 39 per cent in 2010, the report found.
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