Public vs. Private Sector Work

nauru
Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:28:03 +0000

Private sector has more pressure, and also more potential for rewards if you are actually better than most people at what you do, in the form of performance bonuses (in addition to generally decent rates of base pay). Job security varies depending on the job, anywhere from moderately high (accounting) to extremely low (investment banking). Benefits also vary widely depending on the firm, industry, and job type. Career advancement is flexible, and if you are very clever and/or well-connected you can potentially rise through the ranks at a faster pace than in government (provided you are smarter politically than all your colleagues who are trying to do the same thing).

Government jobs have much less pressure, extremely high job security (as close as you can get), more vacation time, very generous benefits, hardly any opportunities to be rewarded for superior performance, significantly lower salaries for doing the same work as someone in the private sector – and usually no bonus. Career progression is on a set timetable, as are pay raises. So if you want to get ahead quickly you’ll have to wait in line for that promotion or pay raise until after the incompetent person who just happened to start working 2 years earlier than you did gets theirs (unless you are dating Paul Wolfowitz).

In either case, any large organisation will be bureaucratic, and promotions tend to be based more on politics than actual merit – a major flaw with the current system of western capitalism. It amazes me that in a country like the US with such strong capitalist roots, nepotism would be so widely accepted.