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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
  • 19% weren’t born in Australia
  • 18% speak a language other than English with their family and community
  • 34.6% identify as having no religion compared to 31.7% of the Victorian population
  • 56% identify as Christian compared to 47.9% of the Victorian population
  • 5.2% identify with disability compared to 7.3% of the Victorian labour force
  • 74% 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
  • 5.6% of People Matter Survey 2021 respondents identify with disability.

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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.

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Gender

Percentage of employees by gender

Estimated percentage of employees who identify as transgender, non-binary or gender diverse

Data source:

  • People matter survey 2021 and the school gender equality survey 2021.

Women employees by industry group, June 2016 and June 2021

Percentage of employees by gender and Victorian Public Service pay classification

Intersex

Estimated percentage of employees who have innate variations of sex characteristics (often called intersex)

Sexual orientation

The estimated percentage of public sector employees who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual:

  • 3% identify as gay or lesbian
  • 2.6% identify as bisexual.

An estimated 5.7% of Victorian adults identify as LGBTIQ +.

Of those:

  • 1.8% identify as gay or lesbian
  • 2.8% identify as bisexual.

Data sources:

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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:

  • 74% overall public sector workforce
  • 35% Victorian population aged 15  to 74.

This data was calculated by combining the number of teachers in government schools with data from the People matter survey 2021.

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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:

Aboriginal identity of employees by industry group

In 2017, the Victorian public sector launched the 5 year Aboriginal Employment Strategy, Barring Djinang.

The strategy supports a target of 2% representation of Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander employees by June 2022.

Since June 2017, the number of Victorian Public Service employees who identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander:

  • rose from 478 to 682
  • only rose from 1.1% to 1.2% due to an increase in the number of employees overall.

Data sources:

  • Victorian Public Service and government schools: Workforce data collection 2021
  • all other industry groups estimates: derived from 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

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Employee cultural diversity

Estimated religion of employees

Data sources:

  • estimated percentage of public sector employees: derived from People matter survey 2021 and the school gender equality survey 2021
  • Victorian population: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2016.

Estimated percentage of employees born in Australia

Data sources:

Estimated cultural identity of employees

Estimated percentage of employees who speak a language other than English

Data sources:

  • estimated percentage of public sector employees: derived from People matter survey 2021 and the school gender equality survey 2021
  • Victorian population: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2016.

Disability

Estimated number of employees who identify as a person with disability

The Victorian Government has a plan to increase the number of people with disability in the public sector called Getting to work.

Getting to work is Victoria’s long-term employment plan for people with disability in the public sector.

The plan supports a target of 6% representation of people with disability in the Victorian Public Service by 2020 and 12% by 2025.

The percentage of employees who identify as a person with disability:

  • 5.6% of Victorian Public Service respondents to the People matter survey 2021
  • 5.2% of overall public sector employees (estimate)
  • 7.3% of employed Victorians aged 15 to 64.

Data sources:

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.

Download age profile data set (XLSX, 89kb)

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Reviewed 24 April 2023

Published 24 April 2023