More than 28,000 individuals are employed in the civil service. Overall, women make up a slight a very slight majority. The average age of the civil servant is 40.8. Hansen presented the figures on Tuesday, marking the occasion as the first time such detailed figures surrounding the civil service workforce have been published.
The minister stressed the importance of the state as an employer providing a precise breakdown of its employees in order to understand the demographics of the workforce. This allows the state to see how many employees work part-time, what the average age is, and what type of person works in which department.
Using figures from 2018, Hansen revealed that the majority of civil servants are women, with a 6,000 majority. Up until May 2018, there was less flexibility in terms of part-time work, with employees only able to choose from 25%, 50%, or 75% of working hours. However, this changed with new legislation on 15 May 2018, which broke part-time work into 90, 80, 70, 75, 50, or 40% of working hours, in order to better meet the needs of the part-time workforce.
This, Hansen explained, allows employees to juggle their working lives and family lives better. He added that there is a steady increase of individuals requesting part-time work, a figure which rose over the course of 2018. Referring to his political mandate, Hansen said that these figures are important to guide political decisions over the course of the next years.
Half of civil servants work in the education sector, making it the most important sector. General administration is the second highest sector with 35% of employees, followed by public security at 11%. Finally, despite the fact that more women are employed by the state, high-ranking positions are mainly occupied by men. Only a quarter of managerial positions are occupied by women.
