Workforce Data — Occupation 2021

Public Service employees were engaged in a wide range of jobs spread across 249 different occupations in 2021. These can be divided into 10 broad occupational groups as shown in the following chart. The 2 largest groups are ‘inspectors and regulatory officers’ and ‘social, health and education workers’, accounting for 36.9% of the Public Service workforce.

Occupational share of the Public Service Full-Time Equivalent workforce, by gender and diversity 2021(XLSX, 72 KB)

Between 2020 and 2021, the Public Service workforce (FTEs) increased by 3,948 or 6.9%. This was driven by increased provision of services to support the Government’s response to COVID-19 across 3 agencies — Ministry for Social Development (MSD), Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), and Ministry of Health (MoH). These increases include:

• around 360 case managers, 310 capability developers, 90 central processing officers, and 90 customer services officers at MSD
• 50 security officers at MBIE
• 105 health advisors at MoH.

In addition, Customs employed 235 fixed-term assistant customs officers to give effect to the COVID-related Maritime Border Order.

Among the occupation groups, ‘social, health and education workers’ (up 947 or 9.4%) and ‘information professionals’ (up 886 or 11.8%) had the largest increases in staff numbers. Proportionally, ‘legal, HR and finance professionals’ had the largest increase (up 17.3% or 455).

Change in occupation profile 2021(XLSX, 82 KB)

The following table shows occupation groups by Public Service department for the last 6 years.

Department occupation trend 2021(XLSX, 68 KB)

Just over 40% of public servants who responded to the Te Taunaki Public Service Census 2021 survey have customer-facing roles, working directly with the public, external customers and clients, or people in their care. Of those who responded to the survey, two-thirds of customer-facing workers were female.

Customer Facing 2021(XLSX, 11 KB)