Public employment increased in 2016, although the Finance minister wanted to reduce it
The number of civil servants had been decreasing until September, but that tendency was reversed in the last quarter of 2016. Teachers and doctors who were hired spoiled the Finance minister's goals.
Employment in the public sector has had a 0.7% homologous increase, which means there are now 4,843 new job positions in 2016 – contradicting the initial goal the Portuguese government had set in the 2016 State Budget of reducing to 10 thousand the number of public employees. Mário Centeno, the Portuguese minister of Finance, had revised that goal down by one-third and, until September, that goal was met, but the new school year and National Health Service signings turned the tables on the minister.
Job positions’ evolution from 2011 to 2016
“On December 31, 2016, employment in the public administrations’ sector was at 663,798 job positions, revealing a 0.7% homologous increase”, is stated in the quarterly publication of the Statistical Summary of Public Employment disclosed by the Directorate General for Administration and Public Employment this Wednesday. Most of this increase was due to fixed-term contracts (4,237 out of the 4,843).
In the table of the public administrations employment flow, it is possible to ascertain that in the ministry of Education there were, last year, 2,363 more employees than in 2015. In the ministry of Higher Education, there were an additional 760 public employees. Another significant increase was registered in the State’s Business Sector, in which 2,060 job positions were created. At stake are the signings National Health Service, namely through a “positive evolution in the medical and nursing careers, between the end of 2015 and 2016”.
