Appendix 1 ꟷ APS workforce information

APS Employment Database

The Australian Public Service Employment Database stores the employment data of all current and former Australian Public Service employees.

APSED is maintained by the Australian Public Service Commission, in support of the APS Commissioner’s functions under Section 41 of the Public Service Act 1999, and data is supplied to APSED from the HR systems of APS agencies.

The data from APSED is made publicly available through the APS Data Release, which provides a statistical snapshot of the APS workforce at 31 December and 30 June each year, as well as trends over the past 20 years.

APS Data Releases consist of 95 data tables and an interactive dashboard with aggregated information about ongoing and non-ongoing employees including:

• engagements, transfers, promotions and separations
• base and paid classifications
• age, length of service
• highest educational qualification, field of study
• diversity groups
• job family
• agency
• location.

Find out more

Australian Public Service Commission (2025) APS Employment Data Release, APSC website, accessed 13 August 2025.

Australian Public Service Commission (2019) APS Employment Database, APSC website, accessed 13 August 2025.

Government Employment Statistics

In addition to the APS employee headcount data published by the APSC from APSED, Finance and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) publish figures relating to the number of staff employed by the Commonwealth Government.

Finance publishes Average Staffing Level (ASL) estimates for each financial year through the Federal Budget process of allocating resources for the General Government Sector (GGS), which includes both APS and non-APS entities.

The ABS publishes government employee estimates via the Public Sector Employment and Earnings (PSEE) labour force data.

Table A 1 shows headcount data published using APSED as at the end of each financial year (at 30 June) aligned with the PSEE estimates where available, and the historical ASL estimates for the respective financial year.

Table A 1: APS employee headcount by employment category, GGS historical estimates of ASL, and Commonwealth Public Sector employment estimates by financial year

Sources:

1. APSED

2. Federal Budget 2025ꟷ26 Budget Paper No. 4, Historical Estimates of Average Staffing Levels of Agencies in the Australian Government Sector. Page 165, Staffing of Agencies, Budget Paper 4, Budget 2025ꟷ26.

3. ABS Public Sector Employment and Earnings, Commonwealth Government measure. Figures up to and including 2021-22 were collected via the Survey of Employment and Earnings (SEE), which used a different collection methodology (sample survey) to the current Public Sector Employment and Earnings (Single Touch Payroll). June 2025 PSEE figures not available at time of publishing.

APS headcount, Average Staffing Level, and ABS Public Sector Employment and Earnings are related, though not directly comparable, due to 3 important distinctions:

• employee population inclusions
• adjustment for work hours
• time period measured.

Employee population inclusions

APSED employee headcount only includes staff employed under the Public Service Act 1999 (PS Act). ASL in the Federal Budget covers the wider General Government Sector (GGS). The Public Sector Employment and Earnings (PSEE) figures published by the ABS have a span beyond the GGS, covering public financial corporations and public non-financial corporations.

The GGS includes both APS and non-APS agencies. Examples of non-APS agencies within the GGS include Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and the Australian Federal Police. Non-APS agencies are not included in APS Employment Database reporting.

Population inclusions can differ within an agency. For some agencies it is possible to employ staff under both the PS Act and other enabling legislation. For example, the Australian Digital Health Agency may employ staff under the PS Act, or under the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability (establishing the Australian Digital Health Agency) Rule 16, section 64. In this case, ASL will cover staff covered by both Acts, while APSED headcount will only cover staff employed under the PS Act.

Examples of public financial corporations include the Reserve Bank of Australia, the Australia Reinsurance Pool Corporation, and Housing Australia. Public non-financial corporations include entities such as Australia Post, Snowy Hydro Limited, Airservices Australia, and NBN Co Limited. These are not included in APSED reporting, nor are they included in Federal Budget staffing estimates.

A full list of agencies and their enabling legislation is published by the Department of Finance at List of Commonwealth entities and companies.

This list provides the Economic Sector of government entities (e.g. General Government, Public Financial and Non-Financial Corporations).

Adjustment for work hours

APSED figures are based on headcount, which is a count of the number of employees, with no adjustment for the hours worked. Each part-time and casual employee is counted as one employee, irrespective of the number of hours they work. ABS PSEE estimates count the number of employees without adjusting for work hours.

In contrast, Finance’s ASL measure does adjust for hours worked, with part-time and casual employees counted using their working hours as a proportion of a standard work week. For example, 2 part-time employees who work half a week each would be counted as 0.5 ASL each and would total 1 ASL. This is in contrast to headcount, which would count each of these employees, totalling 2.

Time period measured

Headcount is a point in time count of the number of employees, whereas ASL takes into account the staffing across the year.

For example, an organisation that had changing staff numbers over the year as per Table A 2 would have an ASL of 100 (average staffing level over the 12 months).

However, the headcount (as at 30 June) would be zero, because the headcount only measures a point in time.

Table A 2: Example staffing profile

Table A 3 provides an outline of the count method and included population of these statistics.

Table A 3: Summary of government employment measures ꟷ count method and population inclusions

Count methods:

• Headcount: staff could not be adjusted for work hours per person (2 x 0.5 part-time employees = 2). Count as at a point in time.
• ASL: staff count adjusted for part-time/casual work hours (2 x 0.5 part-time employees = 1). Average over reporting period.

Population inclusion abbreviations:

• GGS: General Government Sector (e.g. APS: Australian Taxation Office, Services Australia, Home Affairs and non-APS: Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Federal Police).
• PFC: Public Financial Corporations (e.g. Reserve Bank of Australia, Australian Reinsurance Pool Corporation, Housing Australia).
• PNFC: Public Non-Financial Corporations (e.g. Australia Post, Australian Rail Track Corporation Limited, Snowy Hydro Limited, Australian Naval Infrastructure Pty Ltd, Airservices Australia, NBN Co Limited).