Metropol

Oh, right.

Hundreds of thousands of private sector workers have lost their jobs during the recession.

In countries like the Republic of Ireland, public sector employees have had to stomach at least 10% pay-cuts (and some redundancies).

And you are irked by a pay-freeze (something that hundreds of thousands of private sector employees have also had to endure, with many more likely to face same).

I don't think you and your colleagues are too badly off - if you don't mind me saying so. The public sector has grown fat over the past decade.

Would a sovereign debt crisis and high interest rates be better? As Liam Byrne said "there's no money left". Their mess has to be dealt with.

The Liberal Conservative government deserves a chance - after all, they were in Opposition when things were ballsed-up to now need to be fixed.

Alexia wrote:Also, rising VAT will increase prices and drive down spending, thus stagnating growth. So the private sector will suffer too.

Oh have some perspective, Alexia. The VAT rise is going to add an extra £21.28 on every £1000 of standard value-added goods you buy. Gas and electricity won't be affected.

Between November 2008 and November 2009 - in the depths of recession - the government increased public sector pay by 3.8%. Meanwhile, the private sector took a pay cut of 0.1%.

I don't think librarians, dinner supervisors or lollipop crossing personnel should have their wages cut or frozen, but the layers of micro-management, administration and human resources are much too bloated and have been for many years.

In other matters, they were talking about the forthcoming immigration cap on the news today. One person moaned that employers will have 'difficulty' finding qualified staff once the annual limit has been reached.

He is clearly oblivious to the fact that 300,000 newly qualified students graduate from British universities every year, but sadly only 10% of them actually manage to get a job in the graduate sector (was 13% before the recession).

So it beggars belief that employers need to import any foreign workers at all when there are clearly hundreds of thousands of highly qualified British and Northern Irish people ready and willing to work.

Steady on!