As the federal bureaucracy plans to shed jobs, the ACT bureaucracy is taking on more staff, adding 674 full-time equivalent positions in 2010-11.
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Chief Minister Katy Gallagher says 402 of the new positions were in education and health, and warns that the territory's equivalent of federal cabinet's razor gang is keeping a close eye on what jobs are created in the ACT public sector.
The ACT Public Service Workforce Profile 2010-11 shows the government had the equivalent of 18,376 staff in June last year, up from 17,702 in June 2010.
Ms Gallagher said a temporary hiring freeze had not applied to front-line positions and it was inevitable the overall size of the service would increase as the ACT's population grew.
''This is a matter that's currently before budget cabinet: what is the right size for the public service in the ACT?'' she asked. ''Acknowledging that it's going to continue to grow because there are areas of demand, like health and … emergency services. As the city grows, you've got to grow those areas as well.''
Ms Gallagher said the Health Directorate was employing an extra 250 to 300 people a year to keep up with demand for services.
''We've done a lot of efficiencies, savings and back-end work and you can never say it's as efficient as it could be, so you've got keep working on that.
''But the ACT government is a pretty lean machine for what it delivers every day.''
The workforce profile also showed the pay gap between men and women in the ACT public service shrank from 3.3 per cent to 3 per cent between 2009-10 and 2010-11. This meant female employees earned an average 97c for every $1 earned by men. The 3 per cent pay gap was much smaller than the 11 per cent gap between all male and female employees in the ACT and the 17.7 per cent national gender pay gap.
Nationally, women earned an average of 82c for every dollar earned by men.
Ms Gallagher said the narrowing pay gap between male and female employees reflected the increasing number of women taking on senior and managerial positions.
''Where you see good results is where there are more senior women than men, or the same number,'' she said.
Female public servants who were likely to earn more than their male colleagues included ambulance and correction officers, executive officers, nurses and midwives, trainees and apprentices and vocational education teachers.
The number of people with disabilities in the ACT public service rose from 327 to 375 between 2009-10 and 2010-11.
The number of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders in the service increased from 176 to 215.
