As the snow-plough driver gave us a lift in early this morning we decided to issue our December Newsletter before the November employment statistics emerged.
This month, in our Focus section, we take a look at some important seasonal employment issues such as what is happening to FÁS; who wins the title for the Grumpiest Santa this year: and why are so many Santas unemployed in 2010?
To lighten matters up on snowy December days we have a short, interview-related, Christmas Quiz to test you.
We also have some interesting new research related to pay and job prospects in our Research and Resources section.
Focus:
Xmas Tales Christmas always seems to be a time when tales of naughty Santa’s and Scrooge-like employers emerge. In our annual round up of seasonal good(and bad)will stories we bring the latest news on one of the contenders for the Grumpiest Santa of 2010 (a sort of Xmas-Factor competition) and take a look at Santa’s employment prospects for this year.
FÁS forward: The Minister for Social Protection introduced the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) (No.2) Bill 2010 on 19 November which allows for the full transfer of the Employment Services and Community Services Programmes and the integration of FÁS staff within his Department. Many of these programmes are currently the responsibility of the Minister for Education and Skills and their transfer is mainly administrative. The more significant change is the integration of FÁS staff into the core civil service. This follows a move in September which saw the transfer of the Community Services Programme and the Rural Social Scheme from the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs to the Department of Social Protection). Minister Ó Cuív said: “The FÁS programmes and staff transfer is intended to provide a more streamlined response to the needs of unemployed people by integrating income support through the social welfare system, with supports for activation and preparation for returning to work.”
Cost of non-employed: The Minister for Social Protection also offered some interesting insight into how the Government perceives the cost of individual unemployment as part of an announcement related to the ‘four year plan’: “The net saving to the State for every ten thousand number reduction in people claiming jobseekers payments could save €120 million (or €12,000 per head). When the extra PRSI income and tax income is added to this saving, the saving can become as high as €200m (€20,000)”.
Grumpy Santa Title: No, its not Minister O Cuiv! The leading contender for this year’s Grumpy Santa goes to the one employed by Evesham Market Town Partnership in England. Last year they booked a “brilliant Father Christmas” according to Town Manager Lew Hammond, “but he failed to turn up”. To make up for that the Town Partnership promised shoppers a switch on of Christmas lights which would be a truly festive affair in 2010. Plans boasting a Christmas grotto with entertainment from puppets, showmen, live music and Morris dancers were released in early November. Come the day, cometh the man: Santa rode in his sleigh on cue but shoppers were disappointed when the red fellow distributed just a few sweets, only spoke twice to children, and had his head down for most of the event.
Lew Hammond, commented: “This was an unfortunate thing that should not have happened as we were just trying to protect the spirit of Christmas. This year Santa turned up but he was inept, sullen and incommunicative - indeed everything a Father Christmas should not be! It was a disaster. Father Christmas has now been sacked and the fee (GBP 250) cancelled. We have also been given an extra GBP50 for the poor performance - that’s a first, too. We haven't had damages awarded before."
Unemployed Santas? The number of Santas facing unemployment is expected to increase this Christmas. The Bonifatiuswerk of German Catholics – a church aid organisation – has begun calling for "Santa Claus-free zones” in Germany’s city centres. The organisation sees Santa as "an invention of the advertising industry designed to boost sales" and as "a representative of consumer society who has little to do with the historical figure of St Nicolas." They hope to spread the word to other European countries during December.
Cold comfort for Santa: A shopping mall in the US has gone a step further, sacking Santa and elf employees who have not had the flu vaccine. Bah Flu-bug!
A Christmas Interview: In these times of high unemployment many people who would not normally do so are applying for part time, seasonal jobs. Dundrum Town Centre recently advertised for a ‘Santa’ and a ‘Mrs. Claus’. They received hundreds of applications and whittled those for the ‘Santa’ position down to three: a local politician; a generous lawyer; and the real Santa Claus were called to interview! On the lift on the way up to the interview room the interviewer had set a test: She placed a fifty Euro note on the floor to see how interviewees would react. All three candidates got into the lift and one-by-one they noticed the note lying on the floor. Which one picked up the note, handed it over to the interviewer, and got the job? Santa of course, the other two don't really exist!
Christmas Quiz
Good news for Googlers (employees of Google) in Ireland with the announcement that they are among the few who will receive a substantial pay rise (averaging 10 per cent) and a bonus this Christmas. Before you dispatch a CV to Google looking for a new job it is worthwhile considering if you would be able to answer their interview questions. Instead of a traditional Christmas Quiz we are asking you the 12 most popular interview questions asked and problems which people have been requested to solve during interviews by Google. The only rule is that you cannot google the answers. Try these:
How many golf balls can you fit in a school bus?
How much would you charge to wash all the windows in Dublin?
In a country where people only want boys every family continues to have children until they have a boy. What is the proportion of boys to girls in the country?
How many piano tuners are there in the entire world?
Why are man-hole covers round?
Design an evacuation plan for Dublin.
How many times a day do a clock’s hands overlap?
Explain the meaning of dead-beef. (Hint: Only software engineers should attempt this one, most other people won’t have a clue).
A man pushed his car to a hotel and lost his fortune: What happened?
You need to check with your friend, Adam, that he has your correct phone number. You cannot talk to him directly, but must send him a written message, via your arch nemesis, Eve. What should you write on the card to ensure that Eve does not find out your number?
You are a captain on a pirate ship and the crew gets to decide how the gold is divided up. If fewer than half agree, you die. How do you ensure that you get a share of the booty and stay alive?
You have eight balls the same size, seven weigh the same and one weighs slightly more. How can you discover which is heaviest using a balance and only two weighings?
If you find these questions too hard, keep them aside and do one each month for the next 12 months – that way you will know if you really still want to work for Google when they announce another bonus around this time next year! If you cannot wait until then don’t worry, we will publish some suggested answers in our January newsletter.
Research and Resources
This month we have news of one of the few employment polls Ireland has managed to top this year; we have some pre-budget tips that might save you money courtesy of taxback.com; bring you the latest statistics on employment, pay, working conditions and hours worked; and bring you news of ‘Plain English Day’.
Ireland tops employment poll: Unfortunately, it is in the militancy league! Ireland lost 170 days per 1,000 employees to strikes and other industrial disputes last year. The strike over proposed pay cuts by public servants in November 2009 accounted for most of the lost days and placed Ireland well ahead of Spain (83 days), Malta (47 days) and the UK (19 days). (Eurofound)
Prebudget Tips: Get it now, before its gone. Website www.taxback.com has come up with a list of tax reliefs it says you should ensure that you claim before Budget Day on 7 December. The reliefs which many people fail to claim each year include: Bin charges paid to private operators (up to 400 Euros could be claimed for the past four years); rent relief (the maximum relief for a single person aged under 55 is €400 and it is €800 for a married couple/widower aged under 55; these amounts double if you are aged over 55); medical expenses (which can include GP visits, doctors’ bills, hospital treatments, x-rays, ambulance transportation, maternity care, prescription medicines, physiotherapy, laser eye surgery, treatment of other eye problems, food and drink for coeliacs, and more); dental expenses (for procedures such as veneers/crowns and root canal treatment); trade union subscriptions (which can be claimed at 20% and can be claimed back over the previous four years); qualifying tuition fees (up to 5,000 Euro per year, with relief available at the standard rate); and flat-rate expenses depending on your profession. Last year, Revenue paid back €102m on medical expenses, €44m on rent and €4.2m on trade union subscriptions.
Taxback also point out that many people are failing to change their tax status when they marry or become single parents, meaning they do not get appropriate tax credits. If you have been made unemployed during the tax year, have decided to leave the country or have not worked a full tax year you may also be due a refund.
Fall in the Live Register? The headline (or unadjusted) figure in the October Live Register shows a drop of 12,864 on the previous month's (September) total, bringing the Live Register down to 429,553. This decrease was the highest October monthly decrease in the Live Register since October 1996 and the lowest monthly total since December 2009. The CSO anticipates a further fall in the November figures which will be issued later today.
Unadjusted September and October figures nearly always show a drop as students return to education during those months while November’s figures usually show a fall due to people taking up part-time work in retail and other seasonal employment. Many commentators expect the Live Register to rise again when most of these fixed-term contracts finish in January and February 2011.
Statisticians cautionary over Seasonal Adjustment: There was also a fall in the seasonally adjusted October Live Register figure to 443,000. This is a decrease of 6,600 or 1.5 per cent on September 2010. Statisticians have been quick to point out, however, that these minor adjustments may not spell the end of rising unemployment just yet. The figures are a mathematical adjustment and are not based on actual survey numbers. There has been a very significant rise in the overall unemployment rate over the past two years pushing the number on the Live Register to nearly half a million people. As a result mathematicians say the normal methods for calculating ‘Seasonal Adjustment’ cannot be relied upon when they turn from negative to positive until the CSO has a full, twelve months of Live Register figures on which to base it.
You can tax us, but leave our coffee alone! A pre-budget survey asked workers what work “treat” they will refuse to give up post budget 2011. Over half (52 per cent) of employees said they will continue to indulge in a morning coffee, over a third (34 per cent) said they will still buy lunch (rather than bring in a packed one), while 14 per still plan to go for after-work drinks with colleagues. (Irishjobs)
Pay cuts, what pay cuts? The result of the latest CSO Household Budget Survey show that average weekly earnings fell by just under four per cent over the past 12 months. However, the hourly pay rate (the key to competitiveness) has hardly changed at all during the same period. This may be one of the reasons why the IMF and ECB have encouraged the Irish Government to reduce the minimum wage.
Cuts in pay and hours worked have not fallen evenly across all workers. A private research study carried out recently found that overall 48 per cent of Irish workers had not suffered any form of pay cut and 35 per cent actually recorded an increase up to the end of 2009. Workers in the public sector seem to have fared worst overall, with an average pay reduction of six per cent in 2009. Even so, this is more than twice the number who reported a cut than the number in the private sector where the average drop in pay was just under three per cent in 2009. However, it is estimated that a further one per cent decrease will have occurred in the private by end of December, 2010 while the Croke Park Agreement has prevented a further pay cut for public sector workers this year, thus narrowing the gap. (CSO, IBEC, and Amarach)
Pay cuts not applied universally: Only 37 per cent of workers in the public sector claimed to have had a real cut in pay last year (2009), leaving 63 per cent without a cut. Although there is no comparable figure available for the private sector the total average pay bill of private sector companies decreased by 10 per cent in 2009 and it is expected to have dropped by a further three per cent this year. While 25 per cent of companies reported introducing pay cuts in 2009, only 15 per cent claim to have made cuts in 2010. (Amarach Consulting, ESRI, Grant Thornton, IBEC, NESDO).
Latest pay-cut figures: The most recent survey of both public and private sector workers by Irishjobs during October and November of 2010 found that half (54 per cent) of respondents said their pay was down compared to this time last year, but almost one in five (16 per cent) told the recruitment website that their pay had gone up this year. A third (30 per cent) said it remained the same. (Irishjobs)
Jobs and hours rather than pay cut back in private sector: Although on the face of it may seem that public sector workers have got a raw deal during 2009/2010 figures from the ESRI estimate that 60 per cent of private firms cut jobs in 2009 while in the public sector only a small number of those on fixed term and temporary contracts lost their jobs. Workers in the private sector also saw a 2.2 per cent decrease in their average working week to 30.9 hours per week (not a concern if they were on a salary, but a significant reduction if they were paid an hourly rate). Irregular earnings (such as overtime payments, bonuses and expenses) in the private sector dropped by nearly seven per cent during the same period. (CSO/ERSI)
Pay prospects for 2011: IBEC estimates that pay will increase by just 0.2 per cent in 2011 and that the national pay bill will increase by just 0.3 per cent. Despite anticipated tax increases in the Budget just 22 per cent of employers expect to increase pay next year.
The recent Irishjobs survey found that one in 20 Irish workers said they could accept a cut of 10 per cent or more in their salary in 2011 without it having any significant impact on their expenditure. One in ten (11 per cent) of workers said they could accept a salary cut of 5-10 per cent and one in three said they could tolerate a cut of one per cent. However, over half of workers (55 per cent) said they would not be in a position to accept any cuts in their income if they were to continue to meet their outgoings.
Job prospects not positive for redundant public sector workers: Some employees in public sector organisations such as the HSE may be looking forward to receiving a large redundancy payment from their employer before taking up a new position in the private sector, but they have been warned to ensure that they have a war chest to tide them over for several years. A survey has revealed that an overwhelming majority (87 per cent) of private sector employers believe that public sector workers are unrealistic about finding jobs and need to market their skills potential employers more effectively. Most private sector employers rank candidate’s private-sector experience as ‘very important’ when hiring. (Hays)
Plain English Day: The Budget debate on 7 December is bound to produce some new acronyms and unclear phases so we should be thankful that Friday, 10 December is the day when the Plain English Campaign is encouraging us to drop the jargon and to shred any documents that contain gobbledygook that come across our paths. Their latest newsletter reminded us of a classic pieced of pensions-related gobbledygook sent to an employee from Cumbria County Council in response to a query back in 1991: '
‘In regard to your recent enquiry regarding your entitlement to retirement benefits if you were to be retired under the Voluntary Redundancy Scheme; when the added years awarded to you under the Scheme exceed 6.2/3rd years, there is a reduction of an amount equal to 30% of your redundancy payment in respect of each year (and part year) of service in excess of this. The amount is deducted from your additional lump sum, but if the said amount is greater than the additional lump sum, the outstanding balance is capitalised and deducted from the additional pensions. When the added years awarded are 6 years 243 days or less there is no reduction in your compensation.'
Budget 2011
Watch out later in the month for a special Budget edition of our newsletter. We will not be covering the entire Budget but rather highlighting the main things which employers and employees need to do to plan for 2011 and beyond.
No Christmas Cards from People Matters? Don’t expect a Christmas card from People Matters this year. It’s not that we are cutting back, but we prefer to make a contribution to charity each year instead. Over the past 12 months we have been supporting the children’s charity Barnardos and we are making an extra contribution to this worthy charity this month. We are also taking part in Barnardo’s Annual Santa Dash (it will be more of a stroll in our case) which takes place, weather permitting, in Marlay Park on 12th December. Give us a wave if you are there.
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