Public service authorities have issued a plan to deal with a wave of employment refugees in the wake of the Abbott government's cuts to the bureaucracy.
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Departmental bosses were told late on Thursday that ''displaced persons'' within the government apparatus were to be given priority for public service jobs.
The government's workplace authority, the Australian Public Service Commission, was responding to increasingly urgent pleas from agency and departmental heads for guidance in the wake of a hiring freeze imposed eight days ago by Eric Abetz, Minister assisting the Prime Minister for the Public Service.
The commission has retained the rhetoric of ''natural attrition'', despite the growing number of departments looking to cull employees with redundancy payouts, and complex flow-charts outlining the tortuous process for hiring.
Commissioner Stephen Sedgwick told department heads ''displaced persons'' were to be given priority for settlement in any public service jobs that become vacant.
''Priority is to be given first to displaced, or potentially displaced, APS employees, then to other existing APS staff,'' he said.
''Agencies will only engage non-APS staff to fill critical vacancies with the agreement of the Australian Public Service commissioner.
''[Any] vacancy is to be filled by displaced staff from within the agency, or, if none are suitable, by displaced staff from across the APS,'' the instructions state. Only in ''rare and demonstrably exceptional'' cases will public service managers be allowed to advertise externally for recruits.