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Employee turnover
Facts, figures and visuals on new starters and separating employees in the public sector workforce.
Unless stated otherwise, this workforce data shows you numbers as at June 2022.
This data doesn’t show the machinery of government changes that came into effect on 1 January 2023.
You can use the dropdown menu at the bottom of each chart to filter the data sets.
For some visuals, we give you a breakdown of the data by:
Victorian Public Service (VPS): the 9 departments, Victoria Police (VPS employees) and 46 authorities and offices defined to be public service employers under the Public Administration Act 2004
Public sector industry groups: all other public sector bodies outside the VPS that have a public function, grouped together by industry.
Overall public sector workforce: VPS and public sector industries combined.
The industry groups are:
creative industries, finance, transport and other
government schools
police and emergency services
public health care
TAFE and other education
water and land management.
Figures on this page include:
employees who move from one public sector agency to another
ongoing and fixed-term staff, but not casual employees
new start rates: non-casual employees who started with their organisation as a percentage of all non-casual employees employed between July 2021 and June 2022
separation rates: non-casual employees who left their organisation as a percentage of all non-casual employees employed between July 2021 and June 2022
At the end of this page, find Excel datasets for June 2018 to June 2022.
We calculate new starter and separation rates based on all ongoing and fixed-term employees hired in the year July 2021 to June 2022.
This includes all non-casual employees who started at or left their organisation, but excludes employees who started or left due to machinery of government transfers.
Key facts
All public sector new starters
58,784 non-casual employees started with a Victorian public sector employer:
22,579 were aged 24 to 34
33,756 were fixed-term employees
25,388 were part-time employees
39,908 were women.
All public sector separations
52,433 non-casual employees separated from a Victorian public sector employer:
29,266 were ongoing employees
27,869 were full-time employees
34,523 were women.
Victorian Public Service Only
13,352 non-casual employees started with a Victorian Public Service employer
67% of new employees (8,902) were employed on a fixed-term basis, compared to 77% in 2020-21
16,365 non-casual employees separated from a Victorian Public Service employer
63% of separated employees (10,261) were employed on a fixed-term basis.
New starter and separation rates
This chart shows the number and percentage of non-casual employees who started with or separated from a new employer between July 2021 and June 2022.
You can filter the data by:
age
full-time or part-time employment
ongoing, fixed term or casual employment
gender.
The percentage figures represent the percentage of all employees within each demographic.
For example, if you select Victorian Public Service (VPS) and percentage from the drop-down menus, you’ll see that between 1 July 2021 and 30 June 2022:
18.6% of all VPS employees were new starters
22.7% of all VPS employees separated.
If you add the age filter, you’ll see that:
25.4% of all VPS employees aged 25 to 34 years were new starters
25.9% of all VPS employees aged 25 to 34 years separated.
You can also filter by number to see the distribution of new starters or separations by industry or demographic.
New starter rates over time
This chart shows the percentage and number of non-casual employees who started with a new employer between July 2017 and June 2022.
For example, 19% of all employees in the Victorian Public Service started with a new employer.
Separation rates over time
This chart shows the percentage and number of non-casual employees who separated from their employer between July 2017 and June 2022.
For example, if you filter by age you’ll see that 17.8% of all public sector employees aged 15 to 24 separated from their employer.
Separation rates by industry
In 2021-22, separation rates for non-casual employees:
increased in all industry groups compared to 2020-21 and the 3 years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic
in the Victorian Public Service rose to 23% from 12% in 2020-21
all industry groups, except Government schools and TAFE and other education, separation rates were the highest recorded since June 2003
aren’t driven by retirement.
Separation rates are influenced by many factors and vary between public sector employers and industry groups. These observations are from reported data.
In 2021-22, separation rates for non-casual employees in the Victorian Public Service rose to 23% from 12% in 2020-21.
It’s not possible to determine all the reasons for the rise, however, our data shows:
63% of separated employees (10,261) were employed on a fixed-term basis. Many of these employees were hired to support the COVID-19 pandemic response.
most COVID Quarantine Victoria employees were fixed-term. The number of fixed-term employees fell from 3,076 at June 2021 to 434 at June 2022.
the separation rate for ongoing employees rose to 12.7% from an average of 9.2% per year between July 2017 and June 2020.
Total separation rose to 19,973 employees from 15,991 employees between 2021 and 2022. Between July 2017 and June 2020 employee separation was an average of 13,991.
Separation rates:
rose to 13.5% from 11.6% in 2020-21
rose in all health service categories (metropolitan, regional, rural and small rural)
were influenced by ongoing employees in the largest occupation groups including nursing, administration and clerical
for administration and clerical employees: rose to 15.5% from an average of 11.4% between July 2017 and June 2020
for nursing employees: rose to 10.8% from an average of 7.5% between July 2017 and June 2020.
Total separation rose to 8,308 employees from an average of 6,574 employees between July 2017 and June 2020.
Separation rates:
rose to 9.2% from and average of 8.1% per year between July 2017 and June 2020
for ongoing education support employees: rose to 11.2% from an average of 5.9% per year between July 2017 and June 2020
for ongoing classroom teachers: rose to 7.9% from an average of 5.0% per year between July 2017 and 2020.
Separation rates:
rose to 5.1% from an average of 3.5% per year between July 2017 and June 2020
rose significantly in Ambulance Victoria, Victoria Police (sworn and protective service officers) and fire services
paramedics account for around half of all Ambulance Victoria separations each year.
Average, 2017 to 2020
2021 to 2022
No.
Rate
No.
Rate
Ambulance Victoria
208
3.9%
422
6.4%
Victoria Police
382
2.2%
747
4.0%
Fire Services
272
5.2%
423
7.4%
TAFE institutes account for the rise in separation rates within this industry group.
Separation is generally higher than in other sectors and rates rose among fixed-term and ongoing employees.
Average, 2017 to 2020
2021 to 2022
No.
Rate
No.
Rate
Fixed term
623
20.7%
742
24.9%
Ongoing
504
9.7%
944
14.6%
Teachers
488
12.3%
695
15.8%
PACCT
549
14.2%
895
20.4%
Data set
This data set covers June 2018 to June 2022.
We source this data from our annual workforce and executive data collections that cover over 1,800 Victorian public sector employers.
Employee turnover
This file has the number and rate of non-casual public sector employees separating and commencing each financial year by:
