Queensland Public Sector employment continues to boom

Posted on October 1, 2018 by Pete Faulkner - Cairns, Jobs, QLD, Townsville, Uncategorized

The release of the June quarter Public Sector work force data shows (again) that the Government’s fiscal principle of keeping full-time equivalent Public Sector employment growth to that of population growth has not been met. FTE growth in the year to June 2018 was +3.6%, about twice the forecast pace of population growth.

The total Public Sector headcount increased by 8,522 over the year while Trend employment in Queensland grew by 64,300 over the same period (i.e. the Public Sector accounted for some 13% of total jobs growth). The growth in the Public Sector work force has seen plenty of commentary (see today’s Courier Mail for the latest) but it’s perhaps worth seeing this in some context. At the time the ALP government came to power in Queensland the Public Sector accounted for 10.3% of total Trend employment in the State, which had fallen to a low of 9.9% after the Newman Government cuts. It stood at 10.7% when Newman took over. These latest figures see that percentage increase to 10.8% by June 2018. In other words, since the election of the Palaszczuk Government the Public Sector has added 12,022 more to headcount than if the percentage of the total number employed had stayed at the same level it was when they came to power in Feb 2015 (10.3%). Over that period the total number employed has risen by 160,800; the “excess” Public Sector increase accounts for 7.5% of that. If we were to assume that all these 12,022 people, had they not been employed in the Public Sector, would currently be unemployed (an extreme assumption!) then the Trend unemployment rate in June 2018 would have stood at 6.6% instead of the actual rate of 6.2%.

Public Sector employment growth is certainly a contributing factor in total employment growth, but to suggest that it is somehow the main driver simply doesn’t hold up under scrutiny.

The data for June also allows us to take a look at the distribution of Public Sector FTEs throughout the State. In the year to June FTE growth in Greater Brisbane was 3.9%, in the Rest of Queensland is was just 3.2%.

Since March 2015 Cairns has grown at close to the regional average up 12.5% while Townsville has seen just 7.7% growth in that time.

While the Government have talked about supporting jobs in regional Queensland, and certainly some programs appear to have done that, this data suggests that when it came to their own direct hiring they have actually stimulated very little extra direct employment in the regions. If FTE growth in the regions had been at the same pace as in Greater Brisbane there would have been only 842 fewer FTEs across the regions than we currently have. However, what is clear is that much of the regional growth has been restricted to the Gold and Sunshine Coasts where growth rates have been well in excess of average. Indeed if we exclude the SEQ regions of the Sunshine and Gold Coasts then Public Sector FTE growth in regional Queensland shrinks to just 8.5% since Mar 2015, well below the pace in the SE corner (13.7%).

		June-18	June-17	%	Mar-15	%
		FTE	FTE	y/y	FTE	since Mar 15
Brisbane – East		4,996	4,788	4.4	4,537	10.1
Brisbane – North		9,387	9,063	3.6	8,254	13.7
Brisbane – South		18,696	18,596	0.5	17,859	4.7
Brisbane – West		4,158	3,540	17.5	3,263	27.4
Brisbane Inner City		44,907	43,464	3.3	40,536	10.8
Ipswich		14,640	13,739	6.6	12,740	14.9
Logan – Beaudesert		10,486	10,075	4.1	9,352	12.1
Moreton Bay – North		9,086	8,859	2.6	8,017	13.3
Moreton Bay – South		3,572	3,257	9.7	2,974	20.1
Greater Brisbane		119,928	115,381	3.9	107,533	11.5
Cairns		13,445	13,062	2.9	11,946	12.5
Fitzroy		5,009	4,963	0.9	4,782	4.8
Darling Downs – Maranoa		9,873	9,636	2.5	9,146	8.0
Gold Coast		19,357	18,350	5.5	16,014	20.9
Mackay		6,505	6,367	2.2	5,893	10.4
Queensland – Outback		6,123	6,006	2.0	5,950	2.9
Sunshine Coast		12,928	12,310	5.0	10,376	24.6
Toowoomba		7,638	7,431	2.8	6,781	12.6
Townsville		12,815	12,475	2.7	11,903	7.7
Wide Bay		11,787	11,589	1.7	11,055	6.6
ROQ		105,481	102,188	3.2	93,847	12.4
QLD		225,09	217,569	3.6	201,379	11.9

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