Sector workforce profile

Overview

The whole-of sector grew from 232,553.84 FTE in March 2020 to 258,012.13 FTE in March 2024. This is an increase of 25,458.29 FTE in five years.

Over the 12 months from March 2023 to March 2024, the whole-of-sector grew by 11,702.64 FTE, a 4.75% increase.

¹ Education sector includes TAFE Queensland.

Source: MOHRI March 2023 and March 2024.

As a proportion of the total sector, the health workforce grew from 39.92% to 41.70% of the total sector, over five years. Over the same period, the education workforce shrank from 33.60% to 31.27%. As in other jurisdictions, the Queensland education sector continues to struggle with teacher shortages.

The rest of the sector, which includes all other public sector departments, initially reduced proportionately between March 2020 and 2022, and then expanded in March 2023 and 2024. The Queensland Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the introduction of savings measures were the main drivers of the sudden reduction between March 2020 and 2022.

Source: MOHRI 2020–2024.

Workforce size by agency

Machinery of government (MoG) changes are common within the public sector context.

These changes occur when the government of the day changes Ministerial portfolios to ensure they align with government’s objectives and priorities. Public sector departments change in composition to reflect the updated portfolios, and to ensure they align with government’s objectives and priorities. Government’s priorities are:

• Good jobs: Good, secure jobs in traditional and emerging industries
• Better services: Deliver even better services right across Queensland
• Great lifestyle: Protect and enhance our Queensland lifestyle as we grow

MoG changes impact the size of a department if functions are transferred into it or out to another department. Such changes may lead to the renaming of a department, abolishment of departments or establishment of new ones. Three MoG changes occurred between March 2020 and March 2024. Two of these MoG changes occurred in 2023.

The table below shows the changes in FTE numbers of different departments and other entities in the last five years.

Occupation type

Key frontline, frontline and frontline support roles

Key frontline, frontline and frontline support roles deliver services, programs and outcomes directly to the community, or provide essential support enabling the development and delivery of frontline services, programs and outcomes.

While people in frontline and key frontline roles engage directly with the community, frontline support roles provide essential support enabling the development and delivery of frontline services, programs and outcomes. Delivery can be via government centres, telephone, online or in the community.

Key frontline roles are those that are critical or essential in a community and include nurses, doctors, teachers, police, child safety case workers, youth case workers and correctional officers.

Corporate roles

Corporate roles provide organisation-wide support to the sector so that it can deliver the Queensland Government’s objectives for the community and frontline services. These roles include employees working in human resource management, accounts and finance, information technology and communication, events coordination and media management/communications.

The Queensland Government response to the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the sector composition. With the introduction of savings measures in July 2020 and the focus on the frontline response to the pandemic, growth in corporate roles slowed significantly and frontline roles increased.

Across 2023 and 2024 recruitment in corporate services increased. This represented a right-sizing of corporate roles following their decrease during the pandemic.

In the twelve months between March 2023 and 2024, there was an increase in the number of FTE for corporate roles, frontline and frontline support roles, as well as key frontline roles.

Source: MOHRI March 2023 and March 2024.

Diversity of roles

There are different key frontline, frontline and frontline support, and corporate roles.

• Teachers and teacher aides: 59,288.54
• Nurses and midwives: 41,370.10
• Allied health (health practitioners, professional and technical): 16,155.93
• Ambulance officers: 5,231.88
• TAFE teachers and tutors: 2,141.86
• Child safety case workers: 1,940.05
• Disability support workers: 943.18
• Police: 11,890.69
• Correctional officers: 4,630.14
• Doctors: 12,105.29
• Firefighters: 2,816.51
• Youth and case workers: 1,036.34

Source: MOHRI March 2024.

For reporting purposes, a two-tier system is used to describe the workforce. The first tier of reporting applies the Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO). Introduced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ANZSCO is an industry standard coding system that attributes a six digit code to a position to describe the occupation being performed. This provides a uniform way for all organisations to categorise different types of roles.

Every position in the Queensland public sector is allocated a specific ANZSCO code when it is created.

The second tier describes the nature of the work undertaken in the role with each role being categorised as either frontline and frontline support roles or corporate roles.

Key frontline, frontline and frontline support roles

Overall, there has been a steady increase in the number of key frontline FTE over the past five years.

The number of teacher aides declined in 2021 and 2022 in response to COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

The number of disability support workers have steadily decreased with the introduction of the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

In this report, numbers reported for the key frontline police officers does not include the police recruits. In the past 12 months, the number of police recruits have almost doubled. This brings the number of police recruits to 558 as at March 2024.

The number of key frontline, frontline and frontline support has increased each year between March 2020 and March 2024. There has been a particularly notable increase between March 2023 and March 2024.

Between March 2022 and March 2023 the number of key frontline, frontline and frontline support roles increased by 1.29%. Between March 2023 and March 2024 the number of key frontline, frontline and frontline support roles increased by 4.30%.

Examples of other frontline and frontline support roles are:

• social workers
• public prosecutors, bailiffs, clerks of court and court registry officers
• front counter and customer enquiry employees, call centre and online customer service employees in Queensland Government service centres
• school crossing supervisors, art gallery and museum curators and guides, archivists, librarians
• mine inspectors, park rangers, fisheries officers, road engineers, surveyors, regulatory inspectors, quarantine officers
• earth science, environmental and agricultural scientists/officers, laboratory technicians, marine biologists, geologists
• builders, electricians and other construction industry tradespersons
• radio dispatchers
• recreation facilitators and instructors
• grants management officers
• hospital and health service employees (non-corporate roles)
• school employees
• prison and community corrections employees
• clerical and administrative support employees in police, fire or ambulance stations and other centres accessible by the community for government services
• program or project planners, administrators, managers and strategy employees who formulate public policies for the provision of government services, programs and outcomes affecting communities (e.g. fisheries, forestry, waste management, public health, youth programs, tourism, environment, planning services and systems, economic strategy and industry development).

Source: MOHRI 2024.

Blank cells mean there were either no employees in the relevant category in the prior years, or there were employees <1000 and these have been rolled up into the <1000 category.

Source: MOHRI 2020-2024.

Corporate service roles

Corporate roles provide organisation-wide support to the sector so that it can deliver the Queensland Government’s objectives for the community – good jobs, better services and great lifestyle.

Corporate services roles make up a small proportion of the Queensland public sector. There are 24,078.85 corporate FTE roles in the Queensland public sector. These roles provide vital services that support and enable key frontline and frontline staff to deliver to the community.

Growth in corporate service roles was relatively slow until 2022, as the sector recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic. With the notable increase in frontline roles, the number of corporate service FTE has also picked up in recent years.

Source: MOHRI 2024.

Source: MOHRI 2020–2024.

In some cases employees are performing corporate type roles that are classified as frontline/frontline support because the role provides essential support enabling the development and delivery of frontline services, programs and outcomes. In these instances, the support provided by the corporate role, to the frontline employees, is critical in enabling services to be delivered to the community at the frontline.

Examples include:

• general clerks, including:
  • officers directly supporting child safety case workers for meetings with children and families
  • officers supporting seniors and carers in relation to cost of living concessions
  • officers providing services in call centres or customer service centres
• people working in the administrative offices of Queensland state schools
• ICT technicians assisting teachers in school computer labs and libraries, or implementing public facing systems such as public transport ticketing systems
• professional trainers coaching employees such as firefighters, police officers, emergency workers, disability support workers, child safety case workers and community recovery workers
• communication professionals providing messages on public safety communication channels warning the community of potential disaster situations.

Location ²

The number of FTE based in both Brisbane Inner City and surrounding suburbs as well as regional locations across the state, has steadily increased in the past five years.

FTE numbers across the state have increased notably between 2023 and 2024. While this upward trend is the case for total FTE, it is also the trend for both corporate roles and frontline (including key frontline) and frontline support roles.

Brisbane remains the administrative or corporate heart of the Queensland public sector.

Regionally-based FTE as % of total sector workforce

Outside of the Brisbane Inner City statistical area, sector workers are concentrated in several key regional centres.

Source: MOHRI 2024.

Employment type

Appointment type

Most Queensland public sector employees are employed on a permanent basis. The proportion of permanent employment in the sector has increased over the past five years.

Source: MOHRI 2024.

Employment status

Most of Queensland’s public sector employees are employed in full-time roles. Employment status has been relatively consistent over the past five years.

Source: MOHRI March 2024.