Some of the young bureaucrats have spoken of ''being given their future back'' after being thrown a career lifeline in a compromise hammered out between the Foreign Affairs Department and the main public servants' union, the Community and Public Sector Union.

Other government agencies and departments have snapped up 17 of the would-be aid workers and seven others are either considering jobs elsewhere in the bureaucracy or have refused job offers.

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They had been offered graduate positions with the overseas aid agency before its takeover last year by the Foreign Affairs Department as part of the Abbott government's $4.5 billion cut to foreign aid.

The successful applicants for the prestigious AusAID program, some of whom had knocked back other job offers, were told by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade there were no jobs for them.

The department, which will go ahead with its own graduate program as usual this year, endured a storm of criticism for its move, which contravened two pieces of specific advice from the Public Service Commission.

Eventually, after threatened action in the Fair Work Commission, the department agreed to classify the graduates public service ''re-deployees'' making them eligible to be hired by other departments despite the hiring freeze.

Union assistant secretary Rupert Evans said the outcome was a huge relief to some of the young people caught up in the process.

''Certainly, all of our members [among the graduates] were offered positions and at least 17 have taken them up so that's fantastic news,'' Mr Evans said.

''They're telling us they feel like they've been given their future back, and from our perspective, this is what should have happened in the first place and it has only happened because the union got involved and advocated for these people.

''It's a win for the public service, it's a win for the Australian community and it's a win for these young people.''

The union official restated his organisation's annoyance with department bosses for the way they went about dumping AusAID's class of 2014, but acknowledged the department had been instrumental in helping the graduates find work.

''It's annoying, and there has been unnecessary stress. It took the CPSU notifying a dispute to the Fair Work Commission to get management to do the right thing,'' Mr Evans said.

''But, once they got on-board, they made every effort to place these people.

''It's a good news story at a very difficult time across the service.''