FRANCE
French taxpayers have been spending more than €1 million (A$1.8 million) per year on salaries for 30 Public Servants who have done no work for more than a quarter of a century.
The bureaucrats in the southern city of Toulon initially lost their jobs when water services there were privatised in the 1990s.
Local authorities failed to find them replacement jobs and were therefore bound to keep paying their wages.
An official report by the Provence-Alps-Riviera Regional Audit Office disclosed that one of these “ghost workers” picked up his state salary while simultaneously working in a managerial job in the private sector.
The report found all 30 received promotions and pay increases based on seniority, despite doing no work.
“It is regrettable, to say the least, that the city was not capable of finding new jobs for some of these employees, especially the youngest,” the Audit Office said.
It also criticised the jobless workers for staying on the Government payroll until the mandatory retirement age of 67 to maximise their pensions.
Private sector workers have often bemoaned the “jobs for life” culture of the Public Service, which employs nearly one in five French workers.
A report from the Ministry of Economics in March revealed that more than 300,000 PS employees were failing to work their statutory 35 hours per week.
The report comes after months of unrest in France, as workers protested their rising tax burden and falling wages.
In a bid to placate an angry public, President, Emanuel Macron promised to cut 120,000 public sector jobs by 2022, to facilitate tax cuts and a reduction of €60 billion (A$97 billion) in public spending.
However, the planned layoffs have also triggered mass protests.
Mr Macron has also promised to pass laws forcing workers to actually show up for their 35-hour work week and clamp down on staff taking more than their five weeks annual leave.
Paris, 1 July 2019
