There has never been a better time to look for a new job – so long as you are an equality and diversity manager, a home-to-school transport service manager, or a senior play pathfinder.

While thousands of private sector workers are being made redundant, local authorities and government departments are still creating a plethora of obscure pen-pushing posts at taxpayers’ expense.

These roles offer salaries of up to £50,000, a 37-hour week and enviable job security.

Though government borrowing is out of control, the latest Guardian Society Jobs supplement is bulging with 40 pages of adverts for well-paid managerial posts.

Jobs on offer range from an integrated whole systems care pathway manager at Camden Primary Care Trust to an appointment for a principal nuisance response officer at Reading borough council. According to the council, the latter “exciting” role entails the management of three nuisance response officers as well as three “advice shops” as part of an effort to devise solutions to antisocial behaviour.

A spokeswoman for the council – whose members have recently called for officers to “maximise efficiency” in the face of a bleak financial outlook – defended the appointment, saying: “The job is definitely an essential job which the council needs and is vital to the service.”

The recruitment bonanza contrasts sharply with ministers’ claims of greater efficiency in Whitehall. Figures released last week showed that government borrowing continues to rise. Alistair Darling, the chancellor, is expected to admit that it will top £68 billion this year. Economists predict it could hit £100 billion next year.

The London borough of Newham seems to be undaunted by tough times. Last week the council found £41,000 to create a post as a casework support services manager for a burgeoning team of administrators, co-ordinators, occupational therapists, handymen and surveyors within its Home Improvement Agency (HIA).

Asked why the role had been created, Stephanie Brann, HIA manager at Newham, said: “Because I created it . . . We decided we needed additional capacity to make sure we deliver our service to a high standard.”

Further north, no shortage of challenges awaits the successful applicant to the role of urban renaissance project officer for Grimsby, in Lincolnshire.

Applicants should be warned that transforming the town seems to have been too much for the post’s previous incumbent: “We had someone in the role for 18 weeks and they’ve just gone back to their previous job,” said an official at North East Lincolnshire council. “They were a bit frustrated.”

More ambition is in evidence at Surrey county council, where officials have plans to coax local library readers from the printed page to the digital screen. The authority is on the lookout for a virtual content manager – with a salary of up to £44,757 – to provide library users with blogging and online social networking facilities.

An official involved in the recruiting process said the council had to offer web-based services similar to that of Amazon, the online bookseller, already available at no government cost.

“Amazon is ever before us. If we detach ourselves from the huge growth in social networking around books we are going to be left behind and our readers are not going to go with us into the 21st century,” she said.

The disparity between the public and private sectors is likely to be increasingly resented by taxpayers.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics for the three months to June 30 show that an extra 13,000 civil servants were hired, taking the total public sector workforce to 5.8m.

Additional reporting: Liz Lightfoot

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