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Engagements and separations

There were 19,246 engagements and 10,465 separations of ongoing employees during 2006–07. The number of engagements was lower than in the previous year when Medicare Australia moved into coverage of the Act. Engagements this year included Austrade which moved into coverage of the Act on 1 July 2006, but this had a very small impact on total engagements since it involved only 493 ongoing employees.

Figure 2.13 shows ongoing engagements and separations as a proportion of all ongoing employees for the past 15 years.

Engagements

Excluding the machinery of government move of Medicare Australia into coverage of the Act in 2005–06, this was the third year in a row in which the number of engagements increased.

Figure 2.14 shows the proportion of engagements by classification for the past 15 years. It shows the long-term fall in engagements at the APS 1–2 levels. This decline has plateaued in the past few years and, indeed, reversed slightly this year. The growth in engagements at these levels this year was spread across a number of agencies, with the largest increase in Defence (up from 266 in 2005–06 to 488 in 2006–07).

Engagements fell, proportionally, at the APS 3–4 levels but rose for all other classifications this year. Despite this drop, the APS 3–4 classifications still accounted for almost half of all ongoing engagements during 2006–07. Growth in engagements was particularly strong for SES (up 22.1%) and graduate trainees (up 14.8%). There has been an increase in the number of engagements of graduate trainees for each of the past three years—the number engaged during 2006–07 (1,203) was the largest for the past 15 years. Engagements of other trainees, however, fell in proportional terms to their lowest level for over 10 years.

Women accounted for 60.8% of ongoing engagements during 2006–07, continuing a long-term trend—in 1992–93, women accounted for 56.5% of engagements.

The largest growth in ongoing engagements during 2006–07 was in the under 25 years age group. This age group outnumbered those aged 35–44 for the first time since 1994–95. The number in the 55 years and over age group fell, proportionally, this year, but it is still much larger than it was 15 years ago (4.3% of all ongoing engagements in 2006–07 compared to 1.8% in 1992–93). Figure 2.15 shows changes in the age profile of engagements for the past 15 years.

The median age of engagements during 2006–07 was 32 years (33 years for men and 31 years for women). During 1992–93, the median age of engagements was 31 years (30 years for men and 31 years for women). The median has increased only slightly over the past 20 years, rising from 29 years in 1987–88. The median age of engagements has not increased as much as might have been expected because, although engagements of employees aged 45 years and over have grown over the past 15 years, this group accounted for less than 20% of all engagements during 2006–07.

Mobility between the APS and the wider labour market can be gauged by the proportion of employment opportunities filled by engagement (i.e. from outside the APS) as a proportion of opportunities filled by engagement and promotion. Over the past 15 years there has been a steady increase in the proportion of opportunities filled by engagement—from 32.6% in 1992–93 to 52.6% in 2006–07. Excluding ‘base-grade’ recruitment—APS 1 to APS 3, Graduate APS and trainee classifications—the proportion of opportunities filled by engagement has risen from 22.9% in 1992–93 to 36.5% in 2006–07.

The long-term trend towards filling employment opportunities by engagement continued this year for all classifications, except for APS 2. Growth was particularly strong for the APS 5, APS 6 and SES classifications.

Re-engagement and prior service

Of the 19,246 ongoing engagements during 2006–07, 2,316 (12.0%) had previously worked in the APS as ongoing employees. Of these, almost one-quarter (567) were re-engaged by the same agency in which they had previously worked. The median length of service prior to re-engagement as ongoing employees was 6.6 years.

A total of 6,043 (31.4% of engagements) who were engaged as ongoing employees during 2006–07 had previously worked as non-ongoing employees in the APS. Of these, 5,049 were engaged as ongoing employees by the same agency in which they were previously non-ongoing. The fact that this group accounted for over one-quarter of all ongoing engagements during the year demonstrates that non-ongoing employment continues to be a major entry point into the APS. The median length of service as a non-ongoing employee prior to their ongoing engagement was 0.8 years.

These two totals include 1,043 people who had both non-ongoing and ongoing previous service. A total of 7,316 (38.0%) of the ongoing engagements during 2006–07 had prior experience in the APS.

Of the 11,957 non-ongoing employees at June 2007, 2,081 (17.4%) had previously worked in the APS as ongoing employees. In general, the proportion with this prior experience increased with level, up to the EL 2 classification where 45.7% of non-ongoing employees had previously worked as ongoing employees. For non-ongoing SES employees, the proportion with previous ongoing experience was 37.2%. Previous ongoing experience was also high among older non-ongoing employees, with 51.8% of non-ongoing employees in the 55–59 years age group and 47.5% in the 60 years and over age group having previously worked as ongoing employees.

The relatively high rates of return to the APS are a positive sign and suggest that former employees are interested in returning to the APS. The fact that non-ongoing employment has become a stepping stone for some employees into the APS labour market makes it important that provisions for non-ongoing employment operate effectively. There may be potential for the APS to consider how to streamline such movements in a tight labour market.

Separations

The overall separation rate for the APS was 7.5% in 2006–07. There were 10,465 separations of ongoing employees, an increase of 9.9% on 9,521 the previous year. The increase was mainly due to a rise in resignations (up from 6,477 in 2005–06 to 7,700 in 2006–07—a rise of 18.9%). Retrenchments fell by 35.9% and invalidity retirements by 11.2%. The number of retrenchments (645) was the second lowest since 1989–90. The number of age retirements rose by 5.9%.

Figure 2.16 shows how the main separation types have varied over the past 15 years. Resignations account for the largest proportion of all ongoing separations from the APS. Excluding resignations at age 54 (to remove the 54/11 effect), there has been a gradual increase in the resignation rate over the past 15 years, from 2.7% of all ongoing employees in 1992–93 to 5.0% in 2006–07 reflecting a more mobile labour force, with less interest in a ‘career for life’. There is, nonetheless, considerable variation in the resignation rate between agencies. Of those agencies with more than 1,000 ongoing employees, the resignation rate during 2006–07, for employees aged under 54, varied from 9.6% in DHS to 1.1% in BoM.

Women accounted for 54.6% of ongoing separations during 2006–07, down from 55.3% the previous year. They were slightly over-represented in resignations (56.6%), and underrepresented in age retirements (51.3%) and retrenchments (41.6%).

The agencies with the largest number of ongoing separations during the year were Centrelink (2,127), Defence (1,324) and ATO (1,080). These three agencies accounted for 43.3% of all separations, consistent with their 47.4% of ongoing APS employment.

Separations by age group for 2005–06 and 2006–07 are shown in Table 2.5. The proportion of ongoing employees in each age group at June 2007 is included for comparison.

Table 2.5: Separations of ongoing employees by age group, 2005–06 and 2006–07

	2005–06		2006–07		% change 2005–06 to 2006–07	Ongoing employees at June 2007
	No.	%	No.	%		%
Under 20	27	0.3	37	0.4	37.0	0.2
20–24	544	5.7	729	7.0	34.0	4.7
25–29	1459	15.3	1578	15.1	8.2	11.5
30–34	1330	14.0	1493	14.3	12.3	13.4
35–39	1098	11.5	1264	12.1	15.1	14.3
40–44	945	9.9	1094	10.5	15.8	14.8
45–49	836	8.8	949	9.1	13.5	15.9
50–54	1446	15.2	1518	14.5	5.0	13.9
55–59	1075	11.3	1024	9.8	-4.7	7.7
60 & over	761	8.0	779	7.4	2.4	3.5
Total	9521	100.0	10465	100.0	9.9	100.0
Source: APSED

The number of separations rose in all age groups, except for the 55–59 years age group. Separations for those in all age groups 50 years and over fell as a proportion of all separations. Comparing separations to the age profile of the APS, those aged under 35 years and those aged 50 years and over separated at a higher rate than their APS representation. The 40–49 years age group was particularly under-represented in separations.

Figure 2.17 shows the proportion of employees in the 50–65 years age group who separated through resignation or retirement, for the past 15 years. The sharp rise for 54-year-olds in the past 10 years is most likely linked to the overall reduction in retrenchments during the period and to the financial incentives for some members of the CSS to resign just before their 55th birthday (the 54/11 effect). The relative decline in age 54 resignations during 2002–03 and the plateau during 2003–04 may be related to the lower exit rates from the CSS during some part of that period. The actual number of age 54 resignations has risen for each of the past four years.