See the list: Where jobs are growing and going in SA public service sectors

The public service will undergo upheaval this year thanks to the ongoing pandemic and increases in public school student numbers. See the growth areas, and the cuts.

The squeeze is on in the public service with many jobs being shuffled to cope with demands caused by more school students, outsourcing of rail operations and road maintenance, and the need for more police for Covid-19 operations.

Treasurer Rob Lucas has revealed how the pressures have seen some public service sectors boom and others decrease.

Job numbers provided to The Advertiser by Treasury show that before June next year there will be major public service job changes in response to growth in student numbers in government schools, outsourcing of rail operations and road maintenance, the need for police to cope with Covid-19, and the coming and going of temporary health staff to deal with the ongoing pandemic.

The state has about 100,000 positions within the public service, but many are part time. While there will be an overall increase of around 1000 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions this year, more than 8000 jobs will change locations, be outsourced or otherwise move within the public service.

The biggest increase will be in the Department of Education, which gains 1044.4 FTE positions to cope with an influx of students to government schools.

The Transport Department suffers the biggest “losses”, with 896.9 FTEs leaving the department because of rail operation and road maintenance outsourcing.

“The same number of staff are being employed, they just are not reflected on our books because train and trams have been outsourced,’’ Mr Lucas said.

Many areas within the health portfolio suffer losses this year, but Mr Lucas said these were part-time employees required during the height of the Covid-19 response last year.

“Also you need to be careful of the Environment Department transfers, (total numbers going “down” by 345.9 FTE) because staff have been transferred from the department to our new landscape boards,’’ Mr Lucas said.

Mr Lucas said there was debate about health staff numbers in the job tables.

Treasurer Rob Lucas says changes are ahead for the public service. Photo: Kelly Barnes/Getty Images.

“But if you compare the total number of staff at June 2022 at the end of this financial year, with the total staff at June 2018, the end of the last government, there are 1000 extra health staff.

“These peaked in June 2021 during the Covid-19 peak and we had to take on large numbers of additional staff over that period, temporary staff on contracts, and that changed as Covid-19 did. Over the same time (back to 2018) there are an extra 258 ambulance staff.”

Public Service Association general secretary Nev Kitchin said: “At every opportunity the state government has found ways to cut staff while spending hundreds of millions of dollars privatising services that South Australian taxpayers have funded over decades”.

Mr Kitchin disagreed with Mr Lucas’s Health Department comments.

He said pressure points in health were most significant in mental health services, and hospitals.

In the Environment Department, he said, there had been significant cuts to park ranger positions.

He said all of the privatisations, which the government “spuriously refers to as outsourcing”, were of significant concern to the PSA.

“The biggest area of concern for our members currently, despite the increase in FTEs reflected in the spreadsheet, is actually child protection,’' Mr Kitchin said.

“Youth workers in residential care and social workers across the agency have been under incredible workload pressure, in the past two years in particular.”

Originally published as See the list: Where jobs are growing and going in SA public service sectors