Page 4 - IDEA Studie 2 2022 Statni zamestnanci a urednici

Study 2 / 2022 State employees and civil servants: where they work and how much they are paid2 JANUARY 2022 DANIEL BARTUŠEK, PETR BOUCHAL, PETR JANSKÝ Summary • Almost one fifth of the Czech Republic's workforce (calculated in full time equivalents) is employed in the public sector. In 2020, almost half (464,000) of these almost one million employees were paid out of the state budget and can be considered state employees. • More than half (265,000) of the country's state employees are employed in state-funded institutions, in particular schools. The remaining, smaller share of state employees (198,000) work in a wide variety of other public organizations, including the armed forces, the police force, government ministries and job centres. • Only a small proportion of state employees can be considered to be civil servants. In 2020 there were about 78,000 of these, which is approximately 8% of all public sector workers and 17% of state employees. This number is rather low in both absolute and relative terms, and stands in contrast to the substantial attention frequently paid in public debate to how many civil servants the country has. • During the past two decades the number of employees in the civil service has fluctuated. Between 2003 and 2010 it grew slightly, by almost 2000 (3%). Between 2010 and 2011 during the economic crisis under Fischer's and Nečas's governments it was reduced by 3000 (5%). Subsequently between 2011 and 2015 under Nečas's, Rusnok's and Sobotka's governments it increased again by 5000 (10%) and from then until 2020 (under Sobotka's and Babiš's government) it did not undergo any substantial further changes. • Although civil servants' average pay has risen continuously since 2013 both nominally and in real terms, since 2018 its rate of increase has failed to keep pace with the rate of wage increase in the economy as a whole, hence its relative level was substantially lower in 2020 than it had been in 2013 (by between 3 and 6 percentage points, depending on the type of organization. 2 We would like IDEA for support and Daniel Münich for his useful comments. Any remaining inaccuracies or errors including all opinions expressed are the authors’ own. This study was produced with the support from the Czech Academy of Sciences as part of its AV21 Strategy programme “Society in Motion and Public Policies”. 2