The Commonwealth government’s workforce shrunk by about 1500 jobs in the 2012-2013 financial year, but its wages bill grew by more than $750 million, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
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The bureau’s latest snapshot of public sector employment and wages shows the federal government employed about 248,500 workers across its public service and non-public service agencies and departments, down from 250,000 the previous year.
But the data contained bad news for the Abbott government’s cost-cutting agenda, with wages growing to $19.7 billion, a 3.8 per cent increase from just under $19 billion in 2011-2012.
Across the sector, state governments employed 1.45 million Australians in June 2013, up slightly from the previous year despite cuts in NSW and Queensland, while local councils had 192,000 workers.
The bureau has put Australia’s public sector workforce at just under 1.9 million Australians with their wages and salaries at nearly $134 billion.
