A viral graph purporting to show Australia leading the world in the ratio of public servants in its workforce has got pulses racing among critics of government spending.<\/p>\n
The graph published by The Economist in 2025 plotted Australia as having the \u201cthe biggest public-sector workforce\u201d, reporting there was 143 government employees per 1000 people.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s only one problem \u2013 it\u2019s off by about one million workers.<\/p>\n
MORE: No degree? 10 jobs earning serious money<\/a><\/p>\n Economist Cameron Murray told news.com.au this chart had repeatedly gone viral on social media despite the fact its data should be recognised as \u201cimplausible\u201d by any expert.<\/p>\n \u201cBut it seems like that\u2019s not the standard of public discourse and political debate,\u201d the chief economist at Fresh Economic Thinking said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can just repeat nonsense because it triggers your tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n As debate rages over the level of public spending in the country, Dr Murray said Australians should be more worried about whether the benefits of our public service outweighed its cost.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can have a really large public sector that functions well. You can also have a small public sector that outsources everything that we\u2019re trying to achieve that functions badly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cBigger or smaller is not the right question \u2013 it\u2019s, \u2018is it better value than the next thing we could spend money on or not?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n MORE: A guide to salary averages in Australia in your industry<\/a><\/p>\n Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed there were almost 2.6 million public servants in June 2025, up 3.3 per cent on the year before.<\/p>\n The Economist\u2019s chart, however, was based on figures obtained from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), a UN agency that compiles workforce data.<\/p>\n According to the ILO \u2013 which counts government institutions, state-owned enterprises and some non-profits among the \u201cpublic sector\u201d \u2013 there were 3.7 million public servants.<\/p>\n When looking at Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development data Australia sat in the middle of the pack for government employment, well behind the likes of Denmark which had 30 per cent of its total employees in the public sector.<\/p>\n It found 15.7 per cent of Australia\u2019s workforce was in public jobs, below the OECD average of 18.4 per cent, about 85 public sector employees per 1000 people.<\/p>\n Sydney radio host Ben Fordham seized on The Economist\u2019s chart this week to complain about Australia having the \u201cworld\u2019s biggest\u201d bureaucracy. <\/p>\n In his opinion segment on Tuesday the 2GB personality said his team had \u201ccome across some pretty shocking numbers\u201d, citing The Economist, showing \u201croughly 29 per cent\u201d of workers were in the public sector.<\/p>\n \u201cChina, a one-party communist state, has about 34 per 1000 \u2013 a long way from our 143 per 1000 workers,\u201d he told his listeners.<\/p>\n Fordham acknowledged the ILO data did not just count bureaucrats but included sectors funded by the government like healthcare and education.<\/p>\n Despite differing views on how to measure the size and efficiency of Australia\u2019s public sector, the country continues to face weak productivity growth and a stagnant private sector.<\/p>\n Experts have previously warned<\/a> that Australia\u2019s taxpayer-funded jobs boom, largely driven by the explosion in the NDIS, has masked weakness in the private sector jobs market.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of that surge in immigration was being absorbed into the workforce but going into the public sector or non-market jobs, whereas private sector employment growth was quite weak,\u201d AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver told news.com.au last year.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a bit artificial in a way, if you regard private sector jobs as more real. You\u2019re absorbing a lot of workers into the public sector, it may have a way to go as there is demand for some of those services, but unfortunately it can be detracting from overall growth in the economy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the jobs they were going into were also relatively low-productivity jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Murray said whether or not Australia had too many public servants was a matter of opinion, but when discussing the issue it was important to compare apples with apples.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just implausible to any economist who\u2019s ever looked at macroeconomic data before to say Australia\u2019s public sector is relatively large compared to wealthy nations, with a public health system and functioning large public institutions,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019ve got to compare us to the European countries. <\/p>\n \u201cAnd when you do that we\u2019re middle of the pack, or were pretty low for Europe, actually we\u2019re sort of lower than in any European country.\u201d<\/p>\n Finance guru Christopher Joye this week told Mark Bouris\u2019 Straight Talk podcast Australians had become \u201caddicted to the idea that the Dan Andrews of the world will bail them out\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr Joye argued the Australian economy was being propped up by government spending and migration, saying the growth in public jobs amounted to \u201csteal socialism\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAccording to the Centre for Independent Studies, one-in-two Australians now drive more than half their income from government and related sectors,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cSo this means we have an economy built on fake growth, and an economy built on a lot of cost pressure \u2026 the private sector is actually struggling.\u201d<\/p>\n