I'm trying to think of a government employee in the US at any level - city, county, state, federal - that doesn't fit this, and I'm coming up short. I work in mental health and can comfortably say that every job offered for my license pays better in the public sector than the private sector, and not by a small margin.
Granted, I have a lot more liberty (and give more to my employees too) but I'm an anecdote. Most therapists don't have that luxury, they work just as much as their government-employed colleagues and for 2/3 the salary.
I'm gonna have to do some gnawing on this one for sure. For some business sectors (investing, manufacturing, e.g.) that don't translate because government doesn't do those things, the comparison doesn't work. But the apples-to-apples jobs (and the ones private doesn't do; police, fire, mail) are absolutely better in .gov than in private land.
With respect to investing, the department of the treasury does employ accountants, economists, and financial experts however I imagine the top end equivalents in the private sector make significantly more. Not sure about average salaries though.
Manufacturing would appear to be an outlier however the government does contract (military, construction, etc.) and I imagine those deals pay significantly better than strictly private ventures since costs overruns appear to be the norm rather than the exception.
Excellent article. As an American I cannot speak to Canada’s bureaucracies with any real knowledge. However, in the U.S., bureaucrats and rank-in-file government employees (in general—there are always exceptions) show up to get paid, not to provide any real assistance or value to anyone. Why should they care? The nature of government employment is monopoly. Without competition, what is their incentive to serve consumers?
While we're both overgeneralizing (I'm sure there are some bureaucrats who work very hard), the fact remains that they have jobs with little accountability and only minor downsides associated with screwing up.
If something can be privatized it should be (not the military).
I'm trying to think of a government employee in the US at any level - city, county, state, federal - that doesn't fit this, and I'm coming up short. I work in mental health and can comfortably say that every job offered for my license pays better in the public sector than the private sector, and not by a small margin.
Granted, I have a lot more liberty (and give more to my employees too) but I'm an anecdote. Most therapists don't have that luxury, they work just as much as their government-employed colleagues and for 2/3 the salary.
I'm gonna have to do some gnawing on this one for sure. For some business sectors (investing, manufacturing, e.g.) that don't translate because government doesn't do those things, the comparison doesn't work. But the apples-to-apples jobs (and the ones private doesn't do; police, fire, mail) are absolutely better in .gov than in private land.
With respect to investing, the department of the treasury does employ accountants, economists, and financial experts however I imagine the top end equivalents in the private sector make significantly more. Not sure about average salaries though.
Manufacturing would appear to be an outlier however the government does contract (military, construction, etc.) and I imagine those deals pay significantly better than strictly private ventures since costs overruns appear to be the norm rather than the exception.
Thanks for the comment.
the us army runs it own munitions plants for some stuff, like artillery rounds, and they have a bunch of plants: https://www.jmc.army.mil/About.aspx?id=About
Excellent article. As an American I cannot speak to Canada’s bureaucracies with any real knowledge. However, in the U.S., bureaucrats and rank-in-file government employees (in general—there are always exceptions) show up to get paid, not to provide any real assistance or value to anyone. Why should they care? The nature of government employment is monopoly. Without competition, what is their incentive to serve consumers?
Thanks for the comment.
While we're both overgeneralizing (I'm sure there are some bureaucrats who work very hard), the fact remains that they have jobs with little accountability and only minor downsides associated with screwing up.
If something can be privatized it should be (not the military).
This is very familiar in Bermuda, because the first thing to disappear in The Bermuda Triangle is accountability.
tying anything to a single number, such as, gdp growth, including any of its variants, is counterproductive.