Public servants might be enjoying out-sized income gains compared to the rest of the population:
However, this earnings growth appears to be coming at the expense of headcount, with the number of bureaucrats working for the Australian Public Service (APS) at its lowest level in a decade, with a total headcount of 150,489 employees. From The Canberra Times:
The APS Statistical Bulletin for December 2017 was released on Thursday, showing the number of Australian public service employees had dropped by 1.8 per cent to 150,489 in the 12 months to December 31.
According to the bulletin, this is the lowest number in the past decade, down from a peak of 166,582 people in 2011. There were 2767 fewer employees in December 2017 than December 2016, with most of the decrease attributed to a 14 per cent drop in non-ongoing employees. While the number of staff members employed for a specific term or a specific task remained steady over the 12 months, there was a drop in casual staff, from 9217 to 6967 staff employed casually.
Clearly, the culling of the APS has come at the expense of under-30s, whose numbers have fallen significantly while the dead wood has remained (see next chart). This might reflect the lower graduate intakes over recent years, which has stifled job opportunities for those graduating from university – much like the rest of the labour market.
