Chapter 2: Statistical snapshot

Abbreviations

A list of the abbreviations used in this report is available in the Glossary

Part-time employees

At June 2006, 11.3% of ongoing employees were working part-time, a very slight increase on the previous year.³ The proportion would have fallen to 10.9% if Medicare Australia had not moved into coverage, as this agency has 21.2% of its ongoing employees working part-time. Women are still much more likely to work part-time, with 17.9% working part-time at June 2006 compared with 3.0% of men. The proportion of men working part-time fell this year, for only the second time in the past decade.

These trends are shown in Figure 2.5.

Figure 2.5: Proportion of ongoing employees working part-time by sex, 1997 to 2006

Source: APSED

Non-ongoing employees are much more likely to work part-time, with 26.0% of non-ongoing women and 17.9% of non-ongoing men in this category. Overall, 23.0% of non-ongoing employees were working part-time at June 2006.

Centrelink is the largest employer of part-time employees with 4650 or 30.5% of all ongoing part- time employees in the APS at June 2006. This group accounted for 18.3% of Centrelink’s ongoing workforce—down slightly from the previous year. Other agencies with large numbers of part-time employees are ATO (2019 or 9.4% of its ongoing workforce), DHS⁴ (1158 or 21.9%) and Medicare Australia (1080 or 21.2%).

Part-time work by age

Part-time work for women continues to be highest in the 30–44 age group, with 24.6% of ongoing women in this age group working part-time at June 2006. For men, the proportion in this age group was 3.4%—considerably lower, but somewhat higher than the proportion for men overall of 3.0%. Older workers (i.e. those aged 45 and over) are less likely to work part-time, with only 2.9% of men and 13.9% of women in this age group working part-time at June 2006. Older workers, however, are more likely to work part-time as they get older (as shown in Figure 2.6).

All three agencies submitted separate responses for the State of the Service agency survey, and are considered separate agencies for that purpose. Separate employee survey results for CSA and CRS Australia are also provided where they are significantly different from the APS average on important variables. DHS itself was too small for employees to be included in the employee survey.

Figure 2.6: Proportion of ongoing employees working part-time by age group and sex, June 2006

Source: APSED

Although still less likely to work part-time than the APS average, the trend towards part-time employment for older workers continued this year. During the past year, the proportion of ongoing employees aged over 60 who worked part-time increased from 8.3% to 9.1%; for those in the 55–59 age group the proportion rose from 6.0% to 6.8%. This trend is encouraging as agencies appear to be using more flexible employment arrangements for older workers. As mentioned above, this trend is also apparent for mature-age non-ongoing employees.

The increase was from 11.26% to 11.31%; however, when rounded to one decimal place there was no change.
In this report, unlike in previous years, APSED data for DHS includes CSA and CRS which are both legally part of the Department.