The wires are humming with the news that the National Trust for Scotland is to lay off a fifth of its full-time workforce. Given the carnage in the private sector, it was probably inevitable that the damage would extend to the third sector.
Still, civil servants are all right. No pain there. Obviously, their pension schemes are not looking quite so healthy as a year or so back, so us in the private sector are going to have to keep working quite a bit longer to keep their retirements nice and comfortable.
Funny expression, civil servant, isn't it? When the master gets laid off, normally the servants are the next to go. It's different for civil servants apparently. Civil would seem to carry the extra meaning of "cannot be got rid of". Or maybe "cannot be afforded".