Public Sector employment growth slows again

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Pete Faulkner - Cairns, Jobs, QLD, Townsville

The release of the June quarter Public Sector work force data shows that the Government’s fiscal principle of keeping full-time equivalent Public Sector employment growth to that of population growth has not been met. However, we need also to note that the Coaldrake Review recommneded, and the Govt accepted, that this target needed to be be ‘nuanced’ to extract the impact of above-population growth in the education and health sectors. FTE growth in the year to June 2019 was +2.0%, which is still above the forecast pace of population growth, but the slowest pace of growth since the ALP Govt came to power. If we look at FTE growth excluding Queensland Health (where growth was 3.1%) and Dept of Education (where growth was 1.9%) we see FTE growth of just 0.7%, which is well below population growth of 1.7% anf forecast growth of 1.6%.

While the growth in the Public Sector, which is now up 14.2% since March 2015, is certainly well in excess of what has been seen in the private sector it is ridiculous to suggest, as some have done, that the increases in Public Sector employment are responsible for all the improvement in the labour market in Queensland. In the year to June 2019 Trend employment in Queensland was up by 43,700. Public Sector headcount increased by 5,489 in the same period; in other words increases in Public Sector employment made up 12.6% of the total increase. When the Palaszczuk Government came to power the Public Sector made up 10.33% of total employment, since Sept 2016 it has sat in a range between 10.58% and 10.83% (where it has been for the past 6 months).

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. Indeed the slowdown in Public Sector hiring over the past year could also been seen as a reason for some of the underperformnace of the Queensland labour market, where employment growth sits at just 2.0% pa compared to 2.5% nationally.

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 1.9%, in the Rest of Queensland it was 2.1%. Indeed, since the ALP government came to power FTE growth in Greater Brisbane (+13.7%) has trailed that in the Rest of QLD (+14.8%)

Since March 2015 Cairns has grown at slightly below the regional average, up 13.7%, while Townsville has seen just 10.5% growth in that time.

It 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. If we exclude the Gold and Sunshine Coast numbers from the Rest of Queensland we see the annual growth rate fall to just 1.9% and growth since March 2015 of just 10.6%.

		Jun-19	Jun-18	%	Mar-15	%
		FTE	FTE	y/y	FTE	since Mar 15
Brisbane – East		5,269	4,996	5.5	4,537	16.1
Brisbane – North		9,820	9,387	4.6	8,254	19.0
Brisbane – South		18,308	18,697	-2.1	17,859	2.5
Brisbane – West		3,756	4,158	-9.7	3,263	15.1
Brisbane Inner City		45,864	44,907	2.1	40,536	13.1
Ipswich		15,202	14,640	3.8	12,740	19.3
Logan – Beaudesert		10,873	10,486	3.7	9,352	16.3
Moreton Bay – North		9,375	9,086	3.2	8,017	16.9
Moreton Bay – South		3,746	3,572	4.9	2,974	26.0
Greater Brisbane		122,213	119,928	1.9	107,533	13.7
Cairns		13,582	13,445	1.0	11,946	13.7
Fitzroy		10,066	9,873	2.0	9,146	10.1
Darling Downs – Maranoa		5,000	5,009	-0.2	4,782	4.6
Gold Coast		19,841	19,357	2.5	16,014	23.9
Mackay		6,669	6,506	2.5	5,893	13.2
Queensland – Outback		6,262	6,123	2.3	5,950	5.2
Sunshine Coast		13,273	12,928	2.7	10,376	27.9
Toowoomba		7,886	7,639	3.2	6,781	16.3
Townsville		13,150	12,815	2.6	11,903	10.5
Wide Bay		11,999	11,787	1.8	11,055	8.5
ROQ		107,727	105,481	2.1	93,847	14.8
QLD		229,947	225,409	2.0	201,379	14.2

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