Australia now has more than 2.5 million public servants, after a more than 3.5 percent rise in numbers last year.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed the number of public sector employees, across all levels of government, rose by 3.6 percent between June 2023 and June 2024.
The data showed there were 2,517,900 Commonwealth, state and local government employees over that time, up from 2,430,400 in the previous financial year.
ABS Head of Labour Statistics Bjorn Jarvis said $232.1 billion in wages was paid to public sector employees during the 2023-24 financial year, an annual increase of eight percent.
“The rise in the public sector wage bill reflected a combination of underlying wage growth, higher employment, and other compositional changes, such as hours worked,” Mr Jarvis said.
He said state governments remained the largest employer, making up around 77 percent of public sector employment, followed by the Commonwealth (15 per cent) and local governments (eight percent).
“Commonwealth government employment, which includes defence personnel, rose 4.3 percent to 365,400 employees, with the $37.3 billion in wages paid by the Commonwealth government a rise of 10 percent compared to 2022-23.”
In Queensland, the number of public sector employees rose to 506,900, from 489,000, with a wages bill of $48.88 billion, an increase of 9.3 percent on the previous year.
Explore all the data: Public sector employment and earnings.
