Australia’s Public Services: Employment and wages surge at expense of private sector jobs since Howard Government, by Paul Cleary and Sid Maher.
An analysis of jobs data by The Weekend Australian shows that the rapid expansion in public-sector employment and wages comes as workers in the private sector face increased job insecurity and record-low salary rises.
Tony Shepherd, the chairman of the National Commission of Audit for the Abbott government, said …, “A lot of that growth is in healthcare, the aged-care sector, and a lot of that is taxpayer funded. It’s recycling taxes. We are borrowing money to fund this. To cover increased and increasing expenditure, we are going further into debt.”
Since March 2008 … hours worked in non-market industries have grown by 24 per cent, compared with 4 per cent for the market sector. …
Wages paid to public-sector employees working in public administration and safety rose by 30 per cent to $45bn in the seven years to June 2015, even though the number of workers in this category was unchanged at 580,000.
According to one of Labor economic spokespersons, Andrew Leigh, the Liberals have been correcting the problem with the number of Australian federal public servants:
