A HUGE TOTAL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4924, 11 January 1926, Page 2

A HUGE TOTAL.

STATE & LOCAL BODY SERVANTS.

WAGES BILL OF £18,000,000.

Few people are aware that in New Zealand the number of persons in the employ of tlie State and local bodies reaches to the huge total of 79,000, the annual wages, bill amounting to £18,000,000. This is .the figure arrived at by the Census and Statistics Office and published in the 1926 Year Booli. In 1915 the aggregate number of State ii,nd local body employees was set down at approximately 60,000, with an annual remuneration of about £8,000,000.

Permanent officers of the Railway Department at March 31, 1925, numbered 12,788, the total; salaries and wages paid during the preceding twelve months being £3,359,504; Wages, pajd to temporary and' casual employees during the year accounted lor a further £1,025,600. Temporary employees at March 31, 1925, numbered 4458, the average employed during the year being 3970. The total employees of the department at March 31 last were thus 17,246, and the wages bill for the twelve months' was £4,385,104, At Marell 31 last the employees of the Post atid Telegraph Department numbered 10,384, of whom 7835 were permanent officers and 2549 casual or temporary employees. Salaries, and wages paid to permanent officers during the' preceding twelve months aggregated £1,767,123, while a total of £384,287 was paid to temporary and casual employees, the average of whom over the year was 1897. Altogether £2,151,910 was paid by the department in salaries and wages during the year, without .taking into account the remuneration of non-per-manent country postmasters aiid postmistresses, mail contractors, etc.