Executive Summary

Growth. As at 30 June 2003 there were 34,445 people employed in the Public Service. The number of permanent (open-term) staff grew by just over 1,250 (5%) during the past year. This growth was spread across most departments. Since 2000, the Public Service has grown by around 3,000 employees (10%) indicating a building of capability in departments, a greater reliance on permanent staff (up by 15% since 2000) and less reliance on temporary staff (down by a third since 2000).

Collective Bargaining. The coverage of collective bargaining has increased by 4 percentage points over the past year to 56% of all employees. Union membership has similarly increased by 4 percentage points to 58% of employees.

Pay Movement. Pay movement in the Public Service has kept pace with movement across the economy as a whole. Pay movement in the education sector continues to move at a faster rate than elsewhere in the State sector.

Pay Gaps. The gender pay gap in the Public Service was smaller than that in the labour force as a whole, once differences due to the occupational structure of the Public Service were taken into account. The largest contributors to pay gaps in the Public Service were that women worked in jobs that had a smaller job-size, on average, than the jobs in which men worked, and that women worked in lower-paid occupations.

Employment Stability and Security. Employment stability and security has increased over the past year. The number of redundancies (188) over the past year was the lowest since information began being collected in 1991. Turnover of permanent staff in Public Service departments has continued at moderate levels similar to recent years, and turnover of all staff has been on a downward trend for several years. This trend reflects a fall in the reliance on fixed-term or temporary employees. On current trends, two-thirds of current public servants are expected to complete at least ten years service with their department. Employment relationships in the Public Service are typically long-term and full-time.

Equal Employment Opportunities. The Public Service continues to employ a diverse workforce that reflects the community it serves and attracts a relatively high proportion of most of the EEO groups in the labour force. Over the past year the numbers of women, Asian and Pacific peoples in the Public Service have increased and the number of Maori public servants has remained steady at a high level compared with the wider labour force. While all of these groups are under-represented in senior management ranks compared with the rest of the Public Service, figures from 1998-2003 indicate that Maori and women are entering senior management ranks at a rate closer to their overall level of representation. However, this progress has not been matched for Asian or Pacific peoples.

When compared with the labour force as a whole, the Public Service employs a high proportion of staff who have disabilities.