In two years, Portugal has 10 thousand more public employees
Statistics published this Thursday show that last year, the number of public employees in public administration increased around 5.5 thousand, an identical increase to the one in 2016.
The year 2017 ended with an additional 5,500 people employed by the Portuguese State, with a 1.3% increase in the fourth quarter, which usually registers a peak with the beginning of the school year. In total, the numbers from DGAEP (Directorate-General for Public Employment and Administrations) show that by the end of the year, there were 669,725 State workers.
Increase in civil service workers
In two years, the Government headed by António Costa’s — under the parliamentary agreement called “contraption” –, had a 10,602 increase in the number of public sector workers. As a percentage, it is a 1.5% increase of the total workforce of civil service employers.
The Statistical Synthesis for Public Employment about the fourth quarter of 2017, published this Thursday, shows that by the end of last year, the Ministries that gave the largest contribution to the 1.3% increase in comparison to the previous quarter were the Education and Science, Technology and Higher Education, “reflecting, during the fourth quarter of the year, the activity of the beginning of the school year of 2017/2018, with the process of placing teachers and technicians for a curricular enrichment”, according to the report.
The average monthly salary in civil service also has been registering an increase since the beginning of the Government headed by the prime minister António Costa. The average monthly basic remuneration for a full-term job was 1,460.8 euros in October of 2017, which signals a 0.7% increase in comparison to October of 2016. This increase is partly explained by the increase in minimum wage.
