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Public servants older, more of them women
By ANDREW FRASER
The Australian Public Service's
workers are getting older, more stable,
a greater proportion of them are
women, and there are more
Aborigines than there used to, accord-
ing to the Australian Public Service
Statistical Yearbook.
The mode age of the Public Service
is gradually rising from the early 20s
in 1976 through to the mid-20s in
1980 and is now around 28. In addi-
tion, fewer people left the Public Ser-
vice last year, but this probably had
more to do with turns in the
economic cycle.
According to the figures, there are
now 143,339 people employed under
the Public Service Act, or about 10
per cent of the public-sector work
force in Australia.
But this is a slightly misleading
figure, as 16 per cent of the workforce
are unclassified, and most of these are
in statutory authorities such as Aus-
tralia Post, Telecom, Australian Air-
lines, and the Commonwealth Bank.
Figures for these are not included.
The states, when combined, are still
the big public-sector employers, with
64 per cent of the total public-sector
workforce employed at this level.
Local government accounts for 9 per
cent, and the Northern Territory 1 per
cent.
For those employed under the Pub-
lic Service Act, there has been a no-
ticeable increase in the proportion of
women. Currently, 38.8 per cent of
full-time staff are women, as com-
pared with 31.7 per cent in 1976.
In the past year, the number of
women employed in the Public Ser-
vice has increased by 3 per cent, and
the number of men has increased by
I per cent. And in the past 10 years,
the number of men has decreased
from around 108,000 to around
106,000, while the number of women
has increased from 50,000 to 67,000.
The departments with the highest
proportion of women to men are
Social Security, Veterans' Affairs,
Public Service Board and Communi-
ty Services; Aviation, Primary In
dustry and Housing and Construction
have the highest proportion of men.
The percentage of women in the
Senior Executive Service has risen
from 0.8 per cent in 1976 to 5.4 per
cent.
As clerical assistants, the propor-
tion of women has risen from 60.3 pier
cent in 1976 to 67.9 per cent now.
In the past statistical year, there was
a rise of almost 30 per cent in the
number of Aborigines in the Public
Service, with 1423 on October I last
year.
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