Economic Optimism Divides Public and Private Sector Workers
As the Trade Union Congress gets under way, Chris Phillips examines the widening gulf between private and public sector worker views of the economy.
Since the election, a gap has opened up between public and private sector worker views of the economy. Private sector workers see a few green shoots, but public sector workers are looking off the edge of a cliff.
Before May's General Election public sector and private sector workers had similar expectations about the economy: more people expected the economy to get better than thought it would get worse. But since the election a gap has opened up. In June our Economic Optimism Index among public sector workers dropped to -30: half (51%) thought the economy would get worse, while only a fifth (21%) thought it would improve. In July, much of the public sector pessimism remained.
Public spending cuts are likely to hit public sector workers particularly hard. Is their increased pessimism about the economy driven by concern about their jobs? Or does working in the public sector produce a different view of the country's wider economic prospects? Whatever the reason, public sector fears have clearly been growing. In mid-May, immediately after the formation of the Coalition, half (50%) of public sector workers said they were mostly `hopeful' about what the government would do, compared to 42% who were `fearful'. By mid June though, the positions were reversed, with fear overtaking hope. This suggests that all the talk of cuts appears to be having an effect on public sector workers, but, as the next chart shows, perhaps it is not quite the effect that the Coalition wants. Over the course of the last year the view that cuts are needed has been gaining ground. But public sector workers have changed their views less than private sector workers (though they have lessened their opposition). Indeed, by the summer public sector workers were still more likely to disagree than agree that cuts are needed. The Coalition still has more work to do if it wants to win this argument (especially since support for cuts may fall when the public feel more of the real effects).
No government is likely to find it easy to convince public sector workers of the need for spending cuts. But there can be scope to bring people with you, as we explore in more detail in our recent briefing Tough Decisions: Our top ten tips on priority-setting with the public. Indeed, the Coalition has tried to involve public sector workers in making decisions about how cuts should be made, such as by opening the Spending Challenge consultation initially to public sector workers before broadening it to the general public. There is at least some interest from public sector workers in being involved in decisions about spending cuts: as the following chart shows, half (49%) would like to have more of a say or would like to be actively involved, which is more than the private sector equivalent. This is only to be expected, given the context, but it does suggest there is potential to draw upon.
The Coalition also faces a tough task selling the Big Society to public sector workers. In our recent examination of attitudes to the Big Society for Reuters we found public sector workers are slightly less likely to view the Big Society as beneficial and slightly more likely to be sceptical about the motives behind the agenda. In particular, two fifths (41%) of public sector workers say they strongly agree that "Big Society is just an excuse for the government to save money by cutting back on public services", compared to one quarter (26%) of private sector workers. Such scepticism could be problematic: the Coalition will need public sector workers to help make the Big Society happen and ideally as advocates. But these figures suggest there is some way to go yet.
Public sector disquiet presents both opportunities and dangers for the Coalition and for Labour. Partly this reflects how much ground Labour has lost among this group since 1997, and how much has been gained by the Conservatives and Lib Dems.
When Labour decisively won the 1997 and 2001 elections, around half of public sector workers voted Labour (52% in 1997 and 46% in 2001). Indeed, as the chart shows, before 2010 around half of public sector workers were saying they always or mostly voted Labour.
Come the 2010 election and public sector voting for Labour had shrunk to 34% - only slightly higher than among the public as a whole (30%). Almost three-fifths (57%) of public sector workers voted for the Conservatives or Lib Dems: 1.9m votes and 6% of the total votes cast in Britain. David Cameron and Nick Clegg will need to keep much of this support if they want to be confident of a second term in government. As the real impact of cuts starts to be felt this isn't going to be easy.
But while there may be scope for Labour to make headway from an unusually poor showing in the 2010 election, it's not necessarily all bad news for the Coalition. While it's true that public sector workers are more likely than the general public to think of themselves as Labour, the difference is perhaps smaller than might be expected. Indeed, as the next chart shows, more public sector workers currently think of themselves as Lib Dem or Conservative than think of themselves as Labour (by 44% to 35%).
Our July Political Monitor might raise Labour hopes that they can recapture some past support: almost half of public sector workers who are absolutely certain to vote (47%) now say they would vote Labour, with 27% saying Conservative and 18% Lib Dem. But there is a danger for Labour here too: a new leader might make things worse rather than better. Views towards the right approach to dealing with the deficit may diverge even further than they currently do; if Labour associates itself too strongly with just the public sector, might it lose support among private sector workers and the broad church it built up to keep it in power for 13 years? The debate over core vote or centre ground is being fought out during the current Labour leadership election; whoever wins will need to find an answer.
Finally, if the Coalition does shift the balance between public, private and voluntary sectors, this is going to mean an electorate with significantly fewer public sector workers. The likely political impact isn't clear. To an extent it depends on the state of the rest of the economy: it's perhaps difficult to imagine unemployed former public sector workers voting for the Coalition. But if some service provision is picked up by the private and voluntary sectors and if the recovery in the private sector continues it could be a quite different story. Are people more likely to become Conservatives if they move from working in the public sector to the private or voluntary sectors? In part, the Coalition's future may rest on the answer to this.
