Sir, – I refer to Mark C Nolan’s letter (November 23rd) which concerned differences between estimates of public sector employment as published by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Central Statistics Office.
The differences between the figures quoted by Mr Nolan are substantially down to two specific reasons. First, the CSO figures are for the total public sector including semi-state bodies; whereas commercial semi-state bodies are not included in the figures quoted from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.
The second reason is that the CSO figures are for the number of persons employed (full-time and part-time) while the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform figures are on a “whole time equivalent” basis. By definition, therefore, the department’s figures will be lower than the number of persons employed.
The latest figures, which are for quarter 3 of 2011, were published on November 23rd by the CSO. In quarter 3, there were 392,900 persons employed in the total public sector including semi-state bodies. There were 53,000 people at work in semi-states (commercial and non-commercial) and 339,900 in the public sector excluding semi-state bodies. Further details are given in Table A2 of the CSO’s Earnings and Labour Costs release, on www.cso.ie. – Yours, etc,