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Chapter 2: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employee profile

Other features of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment

APSED provides other information about the characteristics of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees in the APS.

Length of service

At June 2005, the median length of service for ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees was nine years, the same as for the APS overall. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men have a median length of service of 10 years (11 for the APS), compared with eight for women (APS average of seven).

Fifty-eight per cent of respondents to the census survey had lengths of service of 10 years or less.

Figure 2.17 shows the profile of length of service for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees over the 10 years to June 2005. As a proportion of total ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, the number of those with fewer than five years of service has fallen from almost half (46.9%) in 1996 to less than a third at June 2005 (31.3%). This fall reflects the decrease in engagements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees over this period.

Figure 2.17: Ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees—length of service, 1996 to 2005

Chart

Source: APSED

Location

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees are less concentrated in the ACT than is the APS overall: around one-fifth (22.6%) of ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees are located in the ACT, compared with the APS average of 34.9%. This is similar to the results from the census survey.

More than half of the respondents to the census survey (57%) were located in capital cities, while 9% were in metropolitan areas, 22% in rural areas and 13% in remote areas.⁹

Respondents were more likely to be located in the ACT or in capital cities if they:

were aged under 25 (40% located in the ACT and 69% in capital cities); those aged over 54 were more likely to be located in remote areas (23%)¹⁰
were EL employees (55% located in the ACT and 86% in capital cities); APS 1–2 employees were more likely to be employed in remote areas (23%).¹¹

The results from the census survey also provide information about the size of agencies in which Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders work. The majority (82%) of respondents worked in large agencies (over 1000 employees), followed by 16% in medium agencies (251–1000 employees) and 3% in small agencies (250 employees or less). Nevertheless, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees were more likely than APS employees generally to work in smaller agencies, with most of the difference related to medium agencies. Eighty-eight per cent of all APS employees work in large agencies, compared to 10% in medium agencies and 2% in small agencies.¹² Almost a third of respondents from small agencies were located in the ACT (32%) and close to half were in remote locations (44%).

Mobility within the APS¹³

Figure 2.18 shows the mobility rate between agencies for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees for the past 10 years. There has been considerable variation over the decade, with a downward trend in the first half of the decade, followed by considerable growth in mobility since 1999–00. Overall, there has been only a slight decline between 1995–96 and 2004–05. This trend is quite dissimilar to the APS overall, which has seen an overall decline, with some slight increase in recent years. During 2004–05, the total mobility rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees was 3.2%. This compares with 2.0% for the APS overall.

Figure 2.18: Ongoing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees—promotion and transfer rates between agencies, 1995–96 to 2004–05

Chart

Source: APSED

Educational qualifications

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees are much less likely to have graduate qualifications than are other employees—at June 2005, only one-quarter (25.5%) of Indigenous employees had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with the APS average of 49.9%.¹⁴

Unlike APS employees generally, APSED figures indicate no trend to increasing levels of educational qualifications for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees. For engagements in 2004–05, only 22.7% of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders had graduate qualifications, compared with 66.7% of total APS engagements.

The census survey asked respondents to indicate their highest completed educational qualification. Around one-fifth of respondents (20%) reported that they had tertiary qualifications (a bachelor’s degree or higher), consistent with the information obtained in APSED.

Table 2.4 provides a more detailed breakdown of the educational qualifications of the respondents to the census survey.

Table 2.4: Highest completed educational qualification

Highest completed educational qualification	%
Doctorate	0
Master’s degree	2
Postgraduate diploma (includes Graduate Certificate)	3
Bachelor’s degree (with honours)	1
Bachelor’s degree	14
Undergraduate diploma	3
Associate diploma	5
Certificate III / IV (e.g. business/government/community/other)	19
Certificate I / II (e.g. business/government/community/other)	3
Year 12 or equivalent (HSC/Leaving Certificate)	20
Year 11 or equivalent	8
Year 10 or equivalent	17
Less than Year 10 or equivalent	5

Source: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander APS Employees Census Survey

In addition to those with tertiary qualifications, 30% of respondents had a diploma or certificate. Twenty-eight per cent had Year 11 or 12 qualifications, and 22% had Year 10 or less.

Respondents were more likely to have tertiary qualifications if they:

were aged 54 or under (levels of tertiary qualifications for younger age groups ranged from 21% to 23%, compared to 12% for those aged over 54, but there was no trend to increasing levels of tertiary qualifications among younger employees)
worked at higher classifications (APS 1–2: 9%; APS 3–4: 13%; APS 5–6: 30%; EL: 52%)
worked in the ACT (42% compared to 16% for those outside the ACT)
had shorter periods of service (less than one year (32%) and one to five years (25%)).

While there was no trend to increasing use of tertiary qualifications between those aged under 25 and in the 45 to 54 age group, younger employees were more likely to have diplomas or certificates (42%, decreasing to 23% for those aged 45 to 54). Those aged 44 and under were also more likely than older employees to have completed Year 11 or 12 (between 32% and 33% of those aged 44 and under, 16% of those aged 45 to 54, and 7% of those aged 55 and over).

Key findings

There is a clear trend in the APS of declining levels of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment. This trend reflects both a decline in engagements to the APS and an increase in separations from the APS, with Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders on average leaving the APS with much shorter lengths of service than other employees. The trend to increased separations is particularly troubling as it represents a loss to the APS of a considerable amount of skills and experience. Some potential reasons for high separation rates were explored through the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employee survey, and are discussed in more detail in Chapter 5.

While trends for male and female employment over the last 10 years have been similar among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, male Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders have been continually under-represented in the APS compared to women throughout the period, and relatively under-represented compared to men overall. There appears to be particular potential to increase the employment of male Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders within the APS.

Similarly, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees have had a younger age profile than other employees throughout the period. However, unlike trends in relation to gender, there has been an increasing ageing of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander APS workforce over the past decade, with the representation of young people amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees falling dramatically, and at a rate higher than for the APS overall. This is reflected in a steady fall of engagements in the under 25 age group.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees continue to have a lower classification profile than do other APS employees and there is some evidence that they progress through APS classifications at a slower rate than other employees. While their proportional representation in higher classifications, particularly at the APS 5–6 and EL classifications, has increased, their overall representation appears to have been affected by the dramatic decline in the use of the APS 1–2 levels in the APS. In this regard, the reversal of the trend to decreased engagements of Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders at the APS 1–2 levels over the last two years may be significant, if it is sustained.

While one reason for the continued lower classification profile of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees could be the greater likelihood of their being located outside Canberra and other capital cities, it is probable that a key reason is their lower levels of educational qualifications compared to those of other employees. Data from APSED confirms a substantial difference in the level of graduate qualifications held by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and other APS employees, and, while the level of diplomas and certificates appears to be increasing among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, there is no trend towards an increasing number of employees obtaining bachelor’s degrees or higher. This is likely to become an issue of increasing importance as the emphasis on a graduate APS workforce grows. The combined effect of the dramatic decrease in numbers at the APS 1–2 classifications, in conjunction with a large and growing gap in education levels between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees and non-Indigenous employees, is likely to explain much of the overall decline in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employment.

While traineeships and graduate traineeships have traditionally been a significant source of engagements to the APS for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees, engagements to these classifications have fallen significantly over the past decade. It may be possible for agencies to make greater use of these classifications to engage Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders to the APS, particularly in relation to graduate trainee classifications.

⁹ These categories are derived from the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Area (RRMA) classification system. Information on this can be found in the appendix to this report

.¹⁰ For the purpose of analysis, respondents to the census survey were divided into five age groups: < 25 years, 25–34 years, 35–44 years, 45–54 years and >54 years.

¹¹ In analysing survey results by classification, results for SES employees have been excluded because of the small number of respondents in this category

.¹² APS employee results come from the 2005 employee survey and were reported in the State of the Service Report 2004–05 and/or the State of the Service Employee Survey Results 2004–05.

¹³ Mobility rate is calculated as the number of promotions and transfers during a financial year, divided by the average of the number of employees at the beginning and end of the period. Movements due to machinery of government changes are not included.

¹⁴ The method used to calculate the proportion of employees with graduate or tertiary qualifications includes those with qualifications at bachelor’s degree level and above. It excludes from the denominator those for whom no data was provided by agencies, and those who chose not to provide details of their highest educational qualification.