The Federal Opposition has made much of the fact that over the past five or six years the Public Service has become, in its words, top heavy. It cites figures to show that the service lost 23,000 ASO1s and ASO2s but an extra 4559 senior officers were hired. ASO4s rose 69 per cent and ASO5s and ASO6s rose 33 per cent, while the 1s and 2s dropped 43,000.
The Opposition Wastewatch committee member Senator Ian Campbell said young people were missing out and “”that’s despite the fact that the Public Service is the one employer that the Labor Government has direct responsibility for.”
It may be that the changes show de-facto pay rises through promotion, so that the present ASO4 is doing the job of an ASO2 five years ago but getting paid more for it. More likely, though, is the fact that in the Public Service, as in industry, many lower-end clerical jobs are disappearing with computerisation. The figures reveal, most likely, that the Public Service is getting more efficient.
It would be a waste of public money for the Public Service to employ as many people at the lower level when there is no longer the same amount of work at that level. That does not help young people making a start. But nor will artificial job schemes.
The answer for young people, as the past 13 years has shown with ever increasing youth unemployment, is more likely to lie in the right economic conditions and policy settings to generate private-sector employment.