Employee demographics and diversity
Facts, visuals and data on employee work status, gender and age
Take me to facts and visuals on:
- Key facts
- Employee age
- Employee gender
- Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander employees
- Employee education, bachelor’s degree level or above
- Employee diversity
Get data set on:
Key facts
Overall public sector workforce employees
- 42.6 years is the average age
- 68% are women
- 0.8% identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
- 68% have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Victorian Public Service employees
- 42.5 years is the average age
- 59% are women
- 1.2% identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.
Employee age
Distribution of employees by age
Distribution by age over time
Since June 2006, there has been a shift in the age profile of the overall public sector workforce.
At June 2006, the percentage of employees:
- peaked in the 45 to 49 and 50 to 54 age ranges
- were lowest in the under 25 and 60 or older age ranges.
By 2016 the workforce age profile was more evenly distributed, with around 12% of the workforce in each age range between 25 and 60.
Since then:
- the percentage of employees peaked in the 30 to 39 age range
- the percentage of employees aged 25 to 39 and over 60 rose
- the percentage of employees aged 45 to 54 fell.
Employee gender
Gender of overall public sector workforce vs Victorian labour force
Women employees by industry group, June 2016 and June 2021
Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander employees
Aboriginal identity of overall public sector workforce vs Victorian population
The percentage of employees who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander:
- 0.8% overall public sector workforce
- 0.9% of the Victorian population.
Data sources:
- overall public sector workforce estimate: Workforce data collection 2021 and People Matter Survey 2021
- Victorian population: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians June 2016.
Aboriginal identity of employees by industry group
Data sources:
- Victorian Public Service and government schools: Workforce data collection 2021
- all other industry groups estimates: People Matter Survey 2021.
Number of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Victorian Public Service employees, by VPS grade
Number of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander Victorian Public Service employees, by occupation classification
Education, bachelor’s degree or higher
Overall public sector workforce vs Victorian population aged 15 to 74
Percentage of employees with a bachelor’s degree or higher:
- 68% overall public sector workforce
- 35% Victorian population aged 15 – 74
This data was calculated by combining the number of teachers in government schools with data from the People Matter Survey 2021.
Employee diversity
We’ll publish employee diversity data in early 2022.
Data set
This data set covers June 2016 to June 2021.
We source this data from our annual workforce and executive data collections that cover over 1,800 Victorian public sector employers.
Age profile
This file has the following age profile measures for Victorian public sector employees by gender and industry group:
- average age
- median age
- headcount by age group.