Chapter 2: Statistical snapshot

Ongoing and non-ongoing staff

Both ongoing and non-ongoing staff numbers increased over the last year.

Ongoing staff

At June 2003 there were 120,062 ongoing staff in the APS, an increase of 7.0% on the previous year. This increase continued the pattern set for the previous two years, although the increase was much higher than either of the previous years (3.3% in the year to June 2002 and 5.6% to June 2001).

While numbers increased for both men and women, the increase was greater for women (8.8%) than for men (5.1%). These trends are shown in Figure 2.3.

During 2002–03, the proportion of ongoing employees who were women rose from 51.9% to 52.8%, continuing the upward trend from previous years. At June 2003, women comprised 30.4% of the SES, an increase from 28.3% the previous year, and 37.8% of ELs, an increase from 36.7% the previous year.

The large increase in ongoing staff numbers was mainly due to increases in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) (2560 or 14.5%), Centrelink (1877 or 8.1%) and the Department of Defence (Defence) (1232 or 7.2%). Smaller agencies that increased significantly in size included Defence Housing Authority (DHA) (185 or 38.9%), and National Museum of Australia (NMA) (45 or 32.1%) . Those agencies that decreased their ongoing staff numbers during the year included the ABS (39 or 1.3%) and the National Library of Australia (NLA) (36 or 7.5%).

Non-ongoing staff

Non-ongoing staff numbers rose slightly, from 11,371 to 11,649 at June 2003, although in percentage terms this was a fall from 9.2% to 8.8% of total staff. This fall in percentage continued the trend shown for most of the past decade, except for a slight rise last year. Figure 2.4 provides details of non-ongoing staff as a proportion of total staff from 1994 to 2003. As Figure 2.4 shows, the proportion of non-ongoing employment for both men and women has generally declined over the past decade, and the rate for women has been consistently higher than that for men.

The number of non-ongoing men decreased from 4377 (7.5%) at June 2002 to 4225 (6.9%) at June 2003. For women, the number increased from 6994 to 7424 over the same period; however, their representation in percentage terms dropped from 10.7% to 10.5% of total female staff. This percentage drop continues the downward trend of the past few years and reflects the large increase in the number of ongoing women rather than a decline in non-ongoing numbers for women.

Non-ongoing staff are concentrated at lower levels with 76.4% at the APS 1–4 classification levels. This compares with 43.8% of ongoing staff. More than half of all APS 1 staff (51.8%) are non-ongoing as are 29.2% of APS 2 staff. The representation of non-ongoing staff is much lower at higher classifications. This is shown in Figure 2.5, which also shows the proportion of non-ongoing employment for both men and women.

Women account for 63.7% of non-ongoing employees but are concentrated at lower levels. Women outnumber men at all classification levels up to APS 6, with more men than women at higher levels. For example, 68.4% of non-ongoing APS 1–2 employees are women compared with only 18.4% of nonongoing SES employees.

In general, small agencies have a greater proportion of their staff engaged as non-ongoing than do large agencies, with the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) (62.1%), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) (51.2%) and the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) (48.7%) having the greatest proportion of non-ongoing staff at 30 June 2003.

The median length of service for non-ongoing employees who separated during 2002–03 was six months.

Part-time

At June 2003, part-time staff accounted for 9.4% of total ongoing staff. While the absolute number of ongoing staff working part-time increased from 10,570 to 11,255 during the year, their proportional representation dropped marginally,⁶ and it will be interesting to see whether this trend continues next year in the light of the findings of the Management Advisory Committee (MAC) report on organisational renewal.⁷

The representation of ongoing women working part-time continued to increase in absolute terms this year, but dropped slightly as a proportion of all women. For men, the trend towards part-time work has reversed slightly; for the first time in over a decade, both the number and proportion of men working part-time dropped slightly.

Female non-ongoing employees are more likely to be working part-time than any other group, with almost a quarter (24.9%) of non-ongoing women working part-time compared with 15.4% of ongoing women. For men the proportions are much lower; 16.6% of non-ongoing and 2.6% of ongoing work part-time.

Part-time work for women is highest in the 25–44 age group (18.5%). Only 2.8% of men in this age group work part-time, although this is still slightly higher than the overall male rate of 2.6%. For both men and women aged 45 and over, the proportion working part-time is lower (2.3% and 11.1% respectively) than the overall rates for men and women. Part-time employment is also concentrated at lower classification levels for both men and women, with 4.7% of ongoing men and 17.9% of ongoing women in APS 1–4 classifications working part-time.

Centrelink continues to be the largest employer of part-time staff, employing 33.9% of all part-time ongoing staff in the APS. These comprise 15.2% of their staff. The AIFS (28.2%), Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) (25.0%) and NMA (25.4%) are the agencies with the highest proportion of ongoing parttime staff. Agencies with the largest increase in ongoing part-time staff over the year to June 2003 were Centrelink (an increase of 201 to 3816), the Department of Health and Ageing (Health) (an increase of 90 to 873), the Australian Customs Service (Customs) (an increase of 66 to 658) and the Department of Family and Community Services (FaCS) (an increase of 61 to 601).

 

6 While the percentage remained unchanged at 9.4%, there was a slight decrease (from 9.42% to 9.37%) that does not appear when the proportion is rounded to one decimal place.

7 MAC, Organisational Renewal, Report 3, 2003