Civil employees in Spain

Civil servantSpain is a country of bureaucracy and civil servants. Many people I speak to have only one dream: becoming a civil servant. Unlike most other modern countries, in Spain civil servants earn way more that people working in companies. Add to that some very good secondary labour conditions and a contract for life without performance objectives, and you can understand why most people working for companies envy those others.

Just an example: most teachers earn about 25% more than I do (and my wage is higher than the average company worker). For that money, they work 18-22 hours a week at the school, plus some hours at home for preparation and revision of exams, while I work 8,5 hours a day, five days a week. Furthermore, while I have four weeks of holidays, they get two whole months in summer, two weeks at christmas and another week at eastern!

Other civil servants might not have such a long holidays as the teachers, but they do enjoy other benefits. Knowing all this, I am still surprised whenever I see the huge economical growth Spain is making with such a big and inefficient civil overhead.

3 Comments

Hey, no civil servant bashing please ;-)

But I agree partly with your point. My own salary increased greatly when moved from private employment to governmental employment! Working less for more - but the tasks are at least a lot more diverse and enriching at least for me.

Luckliy I have a different mentality towards working than most people, but the system you're in does make you a lot less productive than in a private company.

I see your point, but some civil servants work and drive for hours!!! Of course there are many lazy people everywhere.

Please don't take it personal! :-)
Seen the conditions I can fully understand why somebody would want to be a civil servant. The problem lies on the macro-economy level, where the production of a country slows down because of the huge amount of overhead.

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