Pay trends in the public and private sectors

It has been longstanding EPSU policy that pay in public services should develop in line with pay in the private sector and a new report commissioned by EPSU from the Labour Research Department (LRD) provides an overview of trends in over 40 countries. The main findings of the report were presented to EPSU's Quality Employment conference by Lionel Fulton of LRD who grouped countries in five main categories: comparable pay growth interrupted by the crisis (10 countries); lower public service pay growth made worse by the crisis (4 countries); lower public service pay growth not clearly linked to crisis (3 countries); similar pay growth across the two sectors (12 countries); and faster pay growth in public services (11 countries) - leaving three countries that were hard to classify. The analysis included 24 EU countries and 18 non-EU countries, with several excluded because of lack of data.

LRD pay trends

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