01 August 2003
Public sector employment has continued to expand, according to figures released this week by the Office for National Statistics.
About 86,000 public sector jobs were created in the year up to June 2002. This was fewer than the 118,000 in the previous year, but still represents the third rise in public sector employment in four years, reversing the downward trend of previous decades.
It brings the total on the public sector payroll to 5.3 million: nearly one fifth of the total labour force.
The largest rises are in areas where public spending has gone up the most. Health gained the most jobs, with a 61,000 increase in 2002, education added 11,000 and central government gained 20,000.
The 1.7% increase in public sector jobs contrasts with a sluggish 0.4% growth in private sector employment. 'Overall growth last year was pretty healthy, and the signs are it may well have grown again in 2003,' an ONS spokesman told Public Finance.
The public sector jobs expansion is not universal. Numbers have fallen, for example, in social services.
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