PUBLIC SERVANTS

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXIX, Issue 86, 7 April 1934, Page 6

PUBLIC SERVANTS

PERCENTAGE OF BREADWINNERS ONE IN FIFTEEN One person in every 15 of the earning population of New Zealand (those between the ages of 14 and 64 years) is a public servant (says a statement by the Associated Chambers of Commerce). This is at the rate of one public servant for every person engaged in factory production and one for every two persons engaged in farming pursuits. The number of persons paid salaries or wages by general and local government is over 63,000 —equal to the whole population of Invercargill, Napier and New Plymouth combined. Particulars are no longer given in the Year Book of the total number of State and local body employees, but a search of the latest official records available has resulted in the following particulars being obtained: — Government department employees 37,845 Local body employees .... 12,609 Hospital board employees . . 4,937 School Teachers 7,838 Education board office staffs 107 Judges and Magistrates ... 42 Visible total 63,378 Unspecified Employees.

The item “Government department employees” shown above, covers those persons acutally listed in the Parliamentary appropriations for 1933-34 as receiving salaries or wages. The figure includes some non-permanents, but not all, a considerable number of these not being specified in the appropriations. For this reason the grand total of persons in the above table is shown as the “visible” total. The actual number of persons unspecified is very difficult to arrive at, but some indication of the number is provided by the fact that a total sum of over £290,000 was appropriated, by different departments for their services during the current financial year. “Local body employees” includes employees of power boards as well as of other classes of local bodies. The figure is arrived at by deducting from the number of local body employees given in the latest Local Authorities’ Handbook the number of relief workers employed at that time by local bodies under the No. 5 scheme of the Unemployment Board. How many of these workers would be employed by, and wholly paid by, the local bodies if it were not for the No. 5 scheme it is impossible to say, and therefore the number of workers engaged by local bodies on Unemployment Fund moneys has been deducted.

“Hospital board employees” which includes 2412 nurses, is shown separately because, these persons are not covered by the official statistics dealing with local bodies. "School teachers” represents the number of teachers in public (State) primary schools, junior high, district high, secondary, combined and technical schools, and is additional to the number of teachers in the Department of Education, which latter are covered by the item “Government department employees.” “No Extension.” In order that the normal characteristics of employment by the State and local bodies might be retained in this analysis, the 75,000 unemployed males who are either wholly or partly a charge on the Unemployed Fund, and of whom a large number are being employed by local bodies and the Public Works Department, are omitted altogether. There have also been omitted the following persons drawing honoraria from public moneys: — One hundred members of Parliament; 251 chairman of local bodies (122 borough councils, 45 harbour boards, 45 hospital boards and 29 power boards); at least 122 unofficial members of various boards and public authorities. Since the. table is not one of persons in the public pay, pensioners numbering 72,580 have also been omitted.

With regard to the actual public servants numbering 63,378 shown in the table above, it is impossible to state the total salaries and wages bill, but in respect of the employees of Government departments shown, also school teachers, the amount paid in salaries, wages and remuneration is in excess of £10,000,000. The figures tell their own story of the burden that is borne by private enterprise in providing the wherewithal to support State services. Many of the public services performed are of course absolutely essential, and some are revenue earning. Of the departments of State generally, however, there are those which are re-

cognised as belonging to the optional field of government, and the fact is that the taxes of general and local government are higher in New Zealand than in Australia. The least that the figures argue is that there should certainly be no extension of the optional functions of government until it has ben demonstrated beyond) any possibility of doubt that there is no other way of achieving the desired! V end. v