The data we collect gives us information about the workforce regions for the Public Service and the wider public sector.
Public Service workforce by region
The largest proportion of the Public Service workforce (44.5%) is located in the Wellington region, which comprises both regional and head office-based staff. This is a slight decrease from 44.7% in 2022. Other regions have 55.5% of the workforce, led by Auckland (20.8%), Canterbury (9.8%) and Waikato (6.4%). Regional distribution of the Public Service tends to be relatively stable over time. The share of the workforce in Wellington increased each year between 2015 and 2021 to 44.9% (although it has dropped slightly since then). A driver for this growing Wellington share was increasing work around designing and supporting digital services. The share of the workforce in Waikato has been slowly declining since 2015 when it was 8.4% of the Public Service.
Public Service staff by region
Public sector workforce by region
When we look at all central government, including education and health, the largest proportion of the workforce is in Auckland. Around 122,400 (30.1%) of 407,200 central government employees are in Auckland.