Employee Benefits in the Private and Public Sector

Employee Benefits in the Private and Public Sector
Name
Institution
Course
Tutor
Date
While the benefits employees have in organizations are important when it comes to compensation, the benefits differ in both the private and the public sectors. The differing needs of the employers and employees in these two sectors have an effect on the characteristics of the benefits received. This essay compares the incidents in which these benefits are administered and the aspects of these benefits in both the private firms and firms owned by the state or government. Data obtained from the labor statistics employee benefits survey that takes place annually shows that:
* Nearly all employees working full-time in the private sector are granted paid vacations. This can be compared with three-quarter of the employees from the public sector. Public employee teachers are the least likely to be given this benefit, while the police and firefighters are more likely to get it. Most private firms grant many purposes of leave; for example, vacation leave is separate from a personal break, while the public sector provides a multipurpose leave that is granted annually.
* State and government workers have a defined pension plan financed by both the employer and the employee, and the benefits are more generous than those of the private sector. The pension plans from the private sector are financed by the employer only. However, the private sector pension plans are also accompanied by social security benefits which are not applicable to the three-quarter from the public sector since they do not have jurisdiction in the social security system.
* Public sector employees have more significant participation in health maintenance organizations than private-sector employees. This is because the public sector employees are more concentrated in the metropolitan areas where these health maintenance organizations are more prominent, thus having a more significant participation in these health plans.
The survey that gives us these data started in 1979 and only looked at the benefits of the private sector, and it was only until 1987 that it started looking at the help of the public sector. The survey gives information on the characteristics and the incidents under which these benefits are applicable. Some of these benefits include paid leave, pension plans, health insurance, contribution plans, flexible work plans, and arrangement of benefits.
     In the private sector survey conducted between 1979 and 1986, the coverage included the mining, manufacturing, transportation, communication, construction, and other service fields. For the study to happen, 250 employees in the construction and mining firms were the minimum participation number while 50 from the accounting industry. The survey had 21 million workers participating. Employees are mainly divided into three groups: technical, production, and administrative, to differentiate the benefit plans' design and availability. Production is referred to as a blue-collar job, while technical and administrative are referred to as white-collar (Statistics, 1990).
     The public sector survey carried out from the year 1987 was classified under administrative, distric...