The Australian Public Service has grown in the last year with more than 161, 000 employees and the mean age three years older than ten years ago.

The APS has grown by 4.1 per cent in the last 12 months, with the employee headcount now at 161, 645, according to the latest APS employment data released by the Australian Public Service Commission last week.

The figures cover 100 commonwealth agencies and are drawn from the APS employment database.

“This release of the Australian Public Service (APS) employment data presents a statistical outline of the APS workforce employed under the Public Service Act 1999,” the APSC said.

“It provides key workforce metrics as at 31 December 2022 and trends from 2003.”

The figures show that as of December 31, 85 per cent of employees were aged over 30, with 33 per cent aged 50 and over. The mean age in 2022 was 43.4, compared to 40.6 in 2003.

There’s been little change in diversity in the APS since the last data release, with 60 per cent women, 23 per cent born overseas, five per cent having a disability and 3.6 per cent identifying as Aboriginal or Torrest Strait Islander.

There were 19,223 ongoing engagements, up by 4,422 from 2021.

More than 11,700 people left the service, including 543 retrenchments, 3524 retirements and 7233 resignations.

Most APS employees are at APS6 with 20 per cent making up EL1.

Headcount is different to Average Staffing Level (ASL) data provided in the Federal Budget papers, which counts staff for the time they work. 

The data complements the Australian Public Service Commissioner’s annual State of the Service Report.

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