Ongoing and non-ongoing employees

Most of the growth in employee numbers this year was due to the large increase in the number of non-ongoing employees.

Ongoing employees

At June 2005, there were 123,242 ongoing employees in the APS, a slight increase of 0.8% from June 2004. This increase extended the growth of the previous five years. It was, however, the lowest proportional increase since the return to growth following the period of downsizing in the late 1990s.

The growth was entirely due to an increase in the number of women from 65,001 to 66,760, a rise of 2.7% on their representation at June 2004. The number of men dropped from 57,304 to 56,482—a fall of 1.4%. These trends are shown in Figure 2.3.

Figure 2.3: Ongoing employees by sex, 1996 to 2005

Source: APSED

During 2004–05, women’s representation increased from 53.1% to 54.2%. This was the first year since 2000–01 that women’s representation grew by more than one percentage point in a year.

There is wide variation between agencies in the proportional representation of men and women. Further analysis can be found in Chapter 9.

The representation of women at higher classification levels also continued to rise: at June 2005, women comprised 33.0% of the SES (an increase from 31.5% at June 2004) and 40.3% of EL employees (up from 39.3% the previous year).

The largest increases in ongoing employee numbers were in ATO (up by 1094 or 5.3%) and DIMIA (up by 971 or 22.7%). Part of the increase in DIMIA was due to movement of employees from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Services (ATSIS). Smaller agencies that increased in size were the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC) (51 or 79.7%), the Office of National Assessments (ONA) (23 or 43.4%), the Federal Magistrates Court of Australia (20 or 35.7%) and the Ombudsman (18 or 22.0%). The largest decreases in ongoing employee numbers were in Defence (641 or 3.5%) and Centrelink (513 or 2.1%). This was the second successive year that ongoing employee numbers fell substantially in Centrelink, after that agency grew by 8.1% in 2002–03.

Non-ongoing employees

Non-ongoing employee numbers rose significantly this year, from 9091 at June 2004 to 10,354 at June 2005, an increase of 13.9%. This followed a sharp decline during the previous year of 20.4%. Non-ongoing employee numbers increased for both men and women; however, the proportional increase was greater for women (15.7%) than for men (10.9%).

Despite this increase, there is still a long-term trend decline in non-ongoing employee numbers.

Almost all of the increase in non-ongoing employment was concentrated in the three largest agencies—ATO (up by 605 or 49.4%), Centrelink (up by 384 or 71.2%) and Defence (up by 179 or 22.7%). In 2003–04, ATO and Centrelink accounted for most of the decline in non-ongoing employment when the number of non-ongoing employees fell by 20.4%.

Figure 2.4 provides details of non-ongoing employees as a proportion of total employees from 1996 to 2005. It shows that the proportion of non-ongoing employment has generally declined over the decade, despite the growth this year. The representation rate for women has been consistently higher than that for men.

Figure 2.4: Non-ongoing employees as a proportion of total employees, 1996 to 2005

Source: APSED

As a proportion of total employees, non-ongoing employment rose from 6.9% to 7.7% in the year to June 2005. The proportion of men rose to 6.3% and that of women to 8.9%.

Non-ongoing employees are concentrated at lower classification levels, with 71.0% at the APS 1–4 levels, compared with only 41.0% of ongoing staff. Well over half of all APS 1 employees (57.9%) are non-ongoing, as are a quarter of APS 2s (25.4%). The concentration of lower classification employees in the non-ongoing employment category has increased this year, with 34.0% of all APS 1–2 employees employed as non-ongoing, compared with 29.1% last year. The concentration was due mostly to a decline in the number of ongoing employees at these classification levels rather than to strong growth in non-ongoing numbers. It will be interesting to see if this trend persists in future years.

As Figure 2.5 shows, the representation of non-ongoing employees at higher classifications is much lower.

Figure 2.5: Proportion of total employees at each classification who are non-ongoing by sex, June 2005

Source: APSED

While non-ongoing employment grew by 13.1% overall, there was considerable variation across the classification groups, with an increase of 28.8% in the number of non-ongoing APS 3–4s, and 13.8% in the number of non-ongoing SES employees.

Women accounted for 63.2% of non-ongoing employees, but are particularly concentrated at lower classification levels. At least 60% of all non-ongoing employees are women at all the APS 1–6 classification levels, with fewer than 50% of non-ongoing employees being women among ELs or the SES.

In general, smaller agencies engage a greater proportion of their employees on a non-ongoing basis than do large agencies. The Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) (60.7%), the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) (51.7%), the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) (42.4%) and the Federal Court (40.4%) had the highest proportion of non-ongoing employees at June 2005.

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