The
Effects of Public Sector Employment Policy
On
the Professional Labour Market: The Case of
By
Asnake
Talargae
kbasnt@
yahoo.com
A
Paper Submitted to the Fifth International
Conference
on Ethiopian Economy
(First
Draft )
Table
of Contents
Page
Abstract
3
Abbreviation and Acronyms
.4
1.
Introduction
.5
2.
Objectives
..
..6
3.
Methodology
.7
4.
Conceptual and Theoretical
Framework
.9.
4.1.
Recruitment
..13
4.2. Remuneration and Rewards
..14
4.3. Human Recourses Development and Training
.15
5. Civil Service System in
5.1. Previous
Experience
17
●Pre-1974/5
●1974/5-1990/1
●Post-1991
5.2. Recent Civil Service
Employment Trends: Overview
.20
5.3. Professional Employment in
5.3.1. Professional
Shortage
24
5.3.2 High Professional Turnover
27
6.
Discussion
..
.29
7. Conclusion and Recommendation
.38.
References
40
Abbreviation and
Acronyms
AACA
CPA Centeral
Personnel Agency
CSC Civil Service Commission
CSRP Civil Service Reform Programme
CM Custodial
and manual
ECA Economic Commission for
EPRDF Ethiopian Peoples R evolutionary
Democratic Front
FCSC Federal Civil Service Commission
FDRE Federal Democratic
HR Human resources
HRM Human resources management
IMF International
NGOs Non-governmental organizations
OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation
Development
PS Professional and science
PAS Public Administration Service
SSC State Services Commission
TGE Transitional Government of
USAID United States Agency for International
Development
WB World Bank
Abstract
This Paper addresses some of the effects of human
resource (HR) policy and management on professional employment in the
.
The impact of HRM on attaining and retaining
professionals is measured using some of the underlying issues related to HR. Essentially
there are two sub-themes examined in this regard. Professional skill shortage,
along with staff-mix, and turnover are the cases in point. Accordingly the
paper argues that the absence of appropriate HRM system in the civil service makes
it difficult to attract and retain skilled HR in the civil service.
The HRM functions such as recruitment,
remuneration and rewards, training, career development and work environment are
used to measure outputs i.e. securing committed and capable talent skill. Furthermore,
the study underlines the need for a fit between the HRM approach and the
organization strategy. Also it is recognized that bundles of linked and
coordinated HRM interventions will be more likely to achieve sustained
solutions to the challenge.
1.
Introduction
The Addis Ababa City Administration (formerly
Addis Ababa Municipal Administration) public sector or civil service within its
own self-rule has been organized pursuant to a designation of chartered administration
decree of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia (TGE1993). In recent years,
it has structured 45 different public sector institutions and 10 sub-cities
with their own functional duties.
In spite of this,
however, reports of the City Administration (2006) shows shortage of professionals
and skills mix are the greatest challenges for civil service. Shortage of
talent skill is manifested in many forms including absence of sufficient talent,
insufficient recruitment, high rate of turnover and low inflow of labour. It
should be noted that skilled labour shortage in civil service is mainly
expressed in terms of inability to attract and retain staff.
For the last 13
years, the public sector has been characterized by critical shortage of
professional human resources (HR) in the service. The existing shortage of
professional situation has been aggravated by high rate of turnover coupled
with insufficient recruitment. The gap between the need and the actual labour
stock is evidenced by many vacant positions unoccupied for long period of time
and repeatedly vacancy announcements.
Therefore, the
status of the existing manpower in different institutions is not sufficient to
promote socio-economic development policies of the AACA. Thus, the
implementation of socio-economic development plans and policies of the city
calls for concrete policy measures and human resource management (HRM) practices
for specific case studies concerned with systematic identification of factors
constraining HRM.
In the same way,
appropriate HRM policy and practices has become increasingly important in
attracting and retaining talent skills and narrowing the ever growing gap
between the need and the actual labour stock. Along with the federal line, the
AACA has been launching a civil service reform program (CSRP) to fill the gap
for more than 13 years. However, the role and sustainability of new employment
policy has become increasingly controversial. In
The problem of
HRM in the civil service would be exceedingly difficult if it involved nothing
more than the traditional personnel administration functions to civil service
employees to perform service delivery for which AACA has responsibility. The
current debate on the effect of employment policy to market competitiveness of
the civil service and alternative ways to secure talent skills at institutional
levels have partly emanated from this limitation of policy reform programs
which have been carried out for so long in the country as a whole and in Addis
Ababa in particular.
This study
examines some aspects of the civil service employment policies implemented
together with compensation programs existing in the case studies institutions,
as well as certain of their labour market effects. Employment policy, together
with other civil service rules and regulations, perceived problem and as a
potential solution to it, has an impact in the three public sector institutions
covered by this research, been the shortage of skilled labour, staff mix and
high labour turnover.
This paper is
organized in the following order. Section 2 will briefly discusses the
objectives of the paper followed by the methodology in section 3, where the
process, tools and techniques applied to collect, analyzing and compile the
data will be provided. Section 4 will provide conceptual and theoretical framework
for studies pertaining to professional skill shortage in
2.
Objectives
The study attempts to investigate issues surrounding professionals
employment with specific reference to public institutions in
·
Assess and
identify the level of professional shortage and the status of HR outflow
the service;
·
Review the main challenges confronting the HRM
policies and practices;
·
Assess the regulatory constraints affecting the
attraction and retention of professional employees; and
·
Explore the HR policies and practices
implications for improving the existing HRM system.
3.
Methodology
The intention of
this study is to find out whether HRM gaps are causing the challenges in
employing and securing skilled civil servants. Hence, to determine to what
extent HRM polices and practices affecting
Turnover and vacancy management were measured for understanding recruitment and retention (Yumkella 2006). Professional voluntary resignations were considered here as turnover. Vacancy management is about the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment (SSC 1999). Both are affected by changes in the wider labour market and give an indication of labour market responses to the public sector. This is an indicative how attractive employment policy is in place to enhance new blood to the service. The causes of unfilled positions and outflow employee can be linked to internal as well as external factors (Yumkella 2006).
Besides the available secondary data indicators employed, the interview conducted was provided how well the organization managing its HR. The questions were related to the internal and external environment, to recruitment and selection, remuneration and rewards, training and development, as well as performance evaluation.
To this end, an
intensive qualitative case study approach was used; employing semi-structured
interviews with HR professionals, Bureau Heads, department managers and other
concerned government officials. Interviews with the Bureau Heads and HR
managers are consider suitable on the premise that managers are primarily
responsible for the development, formulation and implementation of key HR
processes and strategies and because they are in better position to furnish
relevant information during the interview. Thus, intensive interview with
managers are important because they have the required knowledge of HRM.
Furthermore,
in-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted employing close-ended with
ordered choices and open-ended questions. The advantage of open-ended questions
is that the respondent is free to express their ideas and thus the study can
get additional information. In order to get an in-depth insight in to the HRM
policies and practices in
In this regard, of the intended 12 concerned respondents for interview appointments, 10 interviews were secured. Thus asked open-ended questions were conducted with managers, but in order to focus the interviews on the most important issues that would help answer the research questions, relevant concepts from the literature were identified. This did not, however, limit the responses of the interviews.
The indicators
of professionals or well-qualified staff employment can be broadly categorized
as stock and inflow indicators. These indicators can be used to see whether
appropriate staff mixes are there, whether skills shortage is found or not so
as to achieve strategic objectives of these organizations under study.
Measurement of these indicators uses two methods: qualitative methods and
quantitative methods (SSC1999).
The approach in
this study considers people as a key organizational asset. In fact, the
organizations do own their people. The only thing to do is to create employee
commitment and attachment to the organization that could enable to get quality staff
and reduce turnover.
Using indicators
of labour stock measures the value of the assets that employee bring to the
organization, that is, the level of skills, competences, experience and
knowledge. The indicators that used to identify the value of HR assets include
qualifications, experience, labour costs, occupation and job size (SSC 1999).
At another
level, the flow indicators measure the extent to which public sector is adding
to, and/or subtracting from, the stock. This is measured using indicators such
as the efficiency and effectiveness of recruitment, the level of turnover, and
training and development. At more analytical level, these indicators assist in
assessing how the organization is managing its HR to strategic goals. The level
of turnover, for instance, provides sign about employees morale and indicative
of public sectors ways of interaction to find practical solutions. Similarly,
the ineffectiveness of labour competitiveness in the market gives an indication
of responses to the changes in the wider labour market. Measuring HRD and
training also critical how organization develops their own staff to balance
internal promotion and external recruitment in changing situations like
4. Conceptual and Theoretical Framework
Several civil
service institutions in
Research
in many countries has shown that establishing appropriate civil service
employment dimensions and provision of improved reward as well as remuneration
helps to attract and draw the best talent into the public sector (Yumkella
2006; OECD 2002). Capacity building training may also provide decision-makers
with a tool for developing and maintaining realistic strategies for civil
service pay and employment. Improvements in recruitment and selection systems
can also encourage the best-suited candidate to take appropriate position. Most
studies on human resources (HR) challenges tend to suggest generally that the
inappropriate HRM seems to be the major reason why civil service institutions
suffer from critical skills shortage (OECD 2002; Lethbridge 2004; Buchan 2004).
Human resources
framework for the public service has become central to develop the public
service as an employer that competes in the broader labour market for its share
of competent HR (SSC 2004). For many years management of HR was seen as
assistance to line managers by managing leave record and payroll. However,
there has been a growing consensus by academics, theoreticians and practitioners,
these alone are not sufficient to align HR with organizational goals (SSC 1999;
Buchan 2004; Lethbridge 2004). HR framework should also include developing and
implementing effective policies and practices as well as optimizing the
interaction of workplace systems to enable or persuade people to achieve the
organizations goals (SSC 1999). As a result the concept of HRM is considered
as prerequisite for developing labour market competitiveness especially the
public sector.
In this study,
HRM is defined as it is the integrated use of systems, policies, and management
practices to recruit, maintain, retain and develop the appropriate number,
skill mix and motivation of employees who will help the organization meet its
objectives (ONeil and Johnson 1999; Mathauer and Imhoff 2006). On the basis of
this definition, in order to be effective and sustainable, HRM has to include
three levels of intervention: the system level, organizational level,
individual level.
Various scholars
and authors point out the causes of the present challenges facing public sector
HRM system. Among them Scott A. Fritzen (2000) and Trevor Bolton (2001)
categorized causes of shortage of skilled HR into two, i.e. internal and
external factors. Livy (quoted in Bolton 2001) considers the external
environment, which affects the availability of skilled talent in an
organization, include competition from other employers, the supply of and
demand for skills force outside the organization, wage trends and government
policies such as decentralization and public administration reform, socio-economic
development levels and patterns.
Linda Van Gelder
(1999) reviews the challenges in the civil service from internal perspectives. Gelder
argues civil service that limited HR pool may also reflect problems in the
policies or management of HR within the civil administration. Gelder further
goes on to state that factors that impede the ability to attract and retain
skilled personnel include recruitment policies, compensation policy and poor
management systems.
There are other
arguments that consider institutional and policy failure as a major constraint
on the attraction and retention of professionals in the civil service. The
joint staff study of the USAID (2003) indicated the ability to attract and
retain skilled personnel depends to a greater extent on HR and training
policies, weak institutions and inappropriate structures. These relate to the
number of skilled HRD and the structural accommodation of the number of
professionals. According to the OECD (2004), markets, regulation, contracts
with stakeholders and the social pressures that influence civil service
competitiveness in professional labour market.
Stefane M. Kabene et al (2006), on the other hand, relates the HR issues in competitive market under the following main headings: the size and composition of the professional workforce, training issues, the outflow of talent skills, the level of socio-economic development, and cultural factors.
Recent studies,
however, characterized the current HRM policy and practices as hindrance to
market competition for skilled HR. Mekuria et al (2002) argues that the HRM
policies and practices characterized by lack remuneration and motivation
schemes, lack of planning and training, highly centralized personnel management
system. FCSC (1998) uses empirical data to show that pay structure of the civil
service has contributed significantly to skilled HR higher outflow of the
service to the private sector. Furthermore, Asnake and his friends (2005) note
that lack of competitiveness has contributed to the challenges facing the civil
service in recruiting and retaining skilled HR. They further comment that the
incidence of migrating talent to the private sector is potentially dangerous
for the efficiency and quality of government operations at federal, regional
and local levels.
The arguments
summarized above do highlight the mentioned factors effect on the shortage of
professionals. Since attracting and retaining of HR is the main area of concern
for HRM policy and practice of the country, the HRM reform document regards
shortage of skilled labour in terms of inflexible recruitment and wage
policies, lack of career progression, problems with regard to performance
management, and limited practices of HRD (FCSC2002).
Many studies
have examined the relationship between HR policies and securing professional
employees at different levels (Evas and Manning 2001; Gilder 1999). One notable
example to this pattern of research is work carried out by Linda van Gelder
(1999) who investigated the links between limited HR pool and factors that
impede the ability to attract and retain skilled personnel. Gelder identified
problems in the policies or management of HR within the civil administration
which were critical to enhance the level and quality of HR. Skill enhancing
programs are important because qualified HR pool is achieved such motivational
practices have adequately upgrade employees skills.
Several studies
of progressive HRM practices in training, compensation and reward have revealed
that these can lead to reduced turnover, better quality work and better service
rendering (Arthur 1994; Davies 2001; Macduffie 1995). Here, the retention of
professionals is a particular challenge. Recent research findings show that
turnover and motives of highly skilled professionals are not necessarily linked
to income differentials. Poor labour standards, an absence of career
opportunities, and difficult socio-economic and political conditions are
important push-factors. These are also important determinates of the retention
process, and can considerably affect the attraction of talent skills, and to
invest in activities that can reduce capacity shortage and foster sustainable
development. A better understanding of the patterns and dynamics of attracting
and securing skilled HR in the African civil service context is thus essential
to minimize human capital turnover to the other sectors and ensure that the
benefits are both maximized and sustained.
Therefore, a
challenge for HR practitioners is clearly to design holistic systems that integrated
HR policies with best practice and provide positive work experiences
simultaneously. This is similar to the idea that it is necessary to implement
"bundles of HRM practices to achieve sustained improvements in
organizational performance (Buchan 2004).
State Service
Commission (SSC 1998) considers the key to a high performance public service
lies in well-qualified staff at all levels. For this end, HR managers need to
identify current levels of competencies, areas in need of further development,
effective means of addressing development needs, and sets objectives. The
manager also needs to set review and evaluation plan, time schedule and
resource for achievement of the development objectives (SSC 1998).
It is well
argued in the literature that HR policies and management practices and securing
skilled staff have a strong linkage. If appropriate HR policy and management
provided, civil service may play an important role in the process of employment
and mixing the existing staff. The identified HR practices that will enhance
recruitment and retention included selective staffing, competitive and
equitable compensation, training and development activities (Macduffie 1995).
Available
studies suggest that there is a set of best practices for managing employment
and retention. Factors that are affected securing talent HR, according to these
studies, were categorized in to two bundles. The first relates with HR factors
which include person organization fit, remuneration, training and development.
Organizational factors are the second bundles which include leadership
behavior, team work relationship, organizational culture and policies and work
environment (Chew and Entrekin 2004). This study concludes that recruitment and
retention management of employees is influenced by several key factors, which
should be managed by appropriate HRM system and thereby implies that both HR
policies and practices may influence employment and retention of staff and
thereby capacity of organization performance.
The conceptual and
theoretical framework for this study highlights the relationship between
employment policy of the public sector and securing skilled HR in competitive
labour market situation public sector is concerned how to attract and retain
professional staff so as to enhance service delivery. For convenience of
discussion, the most important HR policies and management practices relating to
professionals employment are grouped under three main headings: recruitment,
remuneration and rewards, and HRD and training.
4.1. Recruitment
It is important
to note that employment is far from homogenous and that professional employee
is a small portion of the total. For the purpose of this study, professional is
defined broadly to include all levels of skilled labour forces from first
degree to third, i.e. BA/
Recruitment is seen as both searching for and obtaining potential candidates in sufficient numbers and quality so that the organization can select the most appropriate people to fill its job needs (Bolton 2001). However, studies in this respect show that the public service has faced critical shortages of well-qualified HR. Gelder (1999) states that selective rather than comprehensive recruitment approaches may be helpful to address the challenge.
According to Hiderbrand and Grindle (1997), however, factors such as pay scales and conditions of employment or the size of the public sector are necessary but not sufficient for improved performance. For them, greater autonomy that allows organizations to hire and fire within general framework is needed to be set for the public sector. Recruitment procedures and norms are another tools need to be developed that confer status and identify on public servants and that allow organizations to monitor, evaluate, and enforce such standards.
In addition, the impact of employment policy and management practice depends on the type of recruitment system and the extent to which it is implemented and managed in a strategically planned manner. Scott A. Fritzen (2000) stated that capacities for strategic workforce planning in public sector are often critically weak. Lack of HR information system, planning that focuses only technical matters and neglecting the demanded HR by qualifications, motivation, development and performance of staff are just to mention some of the few problems.
Public sector organizations can play an important role in HRM, but they are often constrained by overly centralized civil service system. Sharing several countries from OECD member states experiences, PM Service (2002) stated that
4.2. Remuneration and Rewards
Among the causes commonly referred to in explanation of the shortage of professional employment and rising level of turnover in the civil service are government policy of remuneration and rewards. Brooks (2005) explained that pay comparisons are a useful tool for indicating potential workforce problems, and are likely to help in finding a level of pay that attracts and retains staff and which employees fell to be fair.
Recent change and development-technological, new systems of financial and performance management, decentralization and the introduction of market mechanisms have profoundly altered the demand for workers and in some cases the types of skills and expertise from civil servants. At the same time, the organizational strategy, structures and practice need to be changed (Gray 1999; Lethbridge 2004).
Lower wages and incentives are the driving forces behind the shortage of talent labour and high turnover in the civil service. In examining most of the OECD countries that encounter critical skill shortage problems in the public sector, PM Service (2000) survey shows that competition with private sector to attract and retain the best talent is intensified. Lower wages, shortage of progression, and HRD have caused many graduates and senior civil servants to choose a career in the private sector over public service. This is evident in many countries with economic reform and emergence of private sectors in economic development in most of sub-Saharan countries.
Furthermore, high labour turnover coupled with shortage of professionals are affecting the organizational capacity in rendering services. This is particularly the case if the employing organizations have poor pay schemes, limited reward and remuneration, unbalanced workloads, and limited career opportunities. Talented and marketable employees possessing critically needed skills are forced to outflow to other sectors in search of better pay and incentives.
Ian Lienert (1998) concluded that salaries need to be restructured comprehensively to enhance transparency and improve governments ability to recruit and retain skilled staff. Despite the fact that salary increase and promotions are based solely on seniority by policies, many competent staff members have been demotiveted and leave the service for private sectors. This is the effects of promotion procedures that look into years of experiences instead of considering performance as center of recognition.
4.3. Human Resources Development and Training
Gl Filerman (2003) comments that lack of competent professionals at all levels discourage decentralization, program integration, local participation and initiative. However, it gives to rise that higher priority for making the investment in HR competence. Inke Mathauer and Ingo Imhoff (2006), on the other hand, consider training and professional progress as an important motivational determinant. They further explain that training can have strong motivating effects through coping people with their jobs and achieving personal goals of professional advancements.
Although HRD and training has become a tool to
attract and retain critical skills in the public sector the training- led model
of public staff management is declined to the extent that almost non- existent.
In this respect,
HRD and training model may be analysed in terms of three factors both internal as well as external to the civil service organization. The first point relates with what Asnake (2001) and Mekeria et al (2002) remarked that absence of career development policy as guidance for staff development and for motivation individual performance. Second, HRD depends on sufficient financial resources to conduct career development for the purpose of filling critical skills gap in the public sector. However, studies have considered financial scarcity due to budget cut resulted from economic reform has undermined the practices of HRD (Naraslmhan 2004; Lethbridge 2004; McCourt and Awases 2007).Finally, HRD depends on the organizations internal management style. Included here are management, planning, decision-making and control and evaluation functions; and information gathering and processing (Wills 1993).
From the above
discussion, it is possible to conclude that absence of HRD policy, financial
constraint and management incompetence are the main challenge for developing HR
so as to bridge the existing skill shortage and mix. Despite the fact that most
of civil service organizations in sub-Saharan
With the role of the public sector limiting itself to employ skilled HR, the demand for employment is dramatically increasing due to many reasons. The market competition has further weakened the availability of talent skills in the civil service. In discussing about the implementation of HRD, Vasant Naraslmhan et al (2004) stated that traditional approach to HR issues resulted in critical skills shortage. Otherwise, as Chew and friends (2005) found that allowing expressing employee training need is a tool to achieve commitment of employee that strengthen attachment to an organization.
Unfortunately,
the HRD and training implementation in public sector is not responding quickly
enough to changes, and these programs have remained rare and not carefully
designed to respond to the specific needs of the organization. On the contrary,
opportunities for training and education in the private sector serve as pull factor
for increasing labour turnover to the sector. All these factors according to
the mentioned authors produce shortage of skilled labour in the civil service.
Conceptual Framework for studying shortage of Professional Employment
· 
Inflexible Employment Policy
· Poor Pay and Incentive schemes Bridging Knowledge gap Shortage of skilled HR
· 
Limited Practices of HRD, Hampered
Training
Source: Adopted from the empirical findings discussed above.
5. Civil Service System in
5.1. Previous Experience
The two major
causes that have received most attention in the literature on HR issues in
A study held by
AACA (1998) indicates that the emergence of civil service structure has been
closely attached with the appointment of nine Ministries by the Emperor Menilik
II in October 1907. Over the years, the
civil service has grown in to an important government service delivery
institution following the process of "modernization" and economic
development which Emperor Haile Selassie I pursued in the aftermath of Italian invasion. The structure as well as the nature of the
public service administration has taken various forms in accordance with the
policy of the central government. In this respect, the study has analysed three
different phases of HRM policies and practices of the civil service in the city
of
Pre-1974/5
During
this period
Although the
Central Personnel Agency, which has organized in a systematized and centralized
way since 1962, was aimed at ensuring that HR functions were implemented in
accordance with a law on the administration of civil servants, the HRM of the
city was largely depended on the decision made by the Mayor.
As indicated in
the study undertaken by AACA (1998), the decision that was made by the mayor
suggested the violation of principles of merit and comptetion in public sector
recruitment and promotion. The practice of HRM within the public sector of the
city was made decisions based on blood ties, nepotism, and loyalty. Such an arrangement allowed public
administration to remain sensitive to personal loyalty. Thus, it undermined
merit and competition, and arguably civil service performance as well, when
unqualified individuals are hired or promoted into posts for which they are
unsuited.
1974/5-1990/1
Perhaps the most
important function performed in this phase is the decisions that were made the
public sector in
As professionals assignment had been
continued centrally by Central Planning Office, the size of the civil service
has not only been increased but also many of them set ideal without anything to
accomplish (AACA 1998). Quite clearly, the combined effects of prohibition of
resignation and transfer, limited the level of salary scale increment, and
dismissal based on political causes have had some impact on civil service.
In one of the
earliest studies on HR issues and service delivery in
Post 1991
Transitional
Government of Ethiopia (TGE 1993) acknowledged the incompatibility of the civil
service rules and regulations with the progress of the country and federal
structure of government. Following the coming to power of the EPRDF in 1991,
the city of
International
Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank supported Civil Service Reform Program
(CSRP), launched in October 1994, whose basic role focused on making the system
efficient and effective. Since then, the City Administration has been launching
similar action, along with the federal line.
Pursuant to the
federal structure and the associated CSRP which was launched in 1994, a bunch
of policy measures targeted at stimulating HRM reform has been enacted. This
donors-sponsored reform stresses the need to design a similar system that is
appropriate to the organization and management of the private sector, focusing
on cost containment and quality improvement in which HRM reform is most likely
to be concentrated. The prominent measures in this respect include:
- Undertaking HRM reform to make the civil service
efficient, neutral, effective, sustainable, transparent and
development-oriented;
- Establishment of a system that may attract and retain
competent professionals dedicated to serve the public;
- Ensuring that appointment, promotion, transfer,
salary increment and training is based only on the educational
qualification, ability, profession, experience and performance of the
civil servants; and,
- Establishment of base remuneration on position
classification and grading and thereby ensure the principle of equal pay
for equal work (FCSC 2002).
In addition, it
is notable that as many of the reforms in Africa or elsewhere, civil service
reform in Ethiopia operated with common assumptions: sustained
cost-containment, efficiency improvement and competitive with the private
sector. One of the most important HRM reform adheres to achieve is that attracting
and retaining skilled HR so as to improve effectiveness of the service.
However, there are a few studies using data from the federal civil service
institutions (FCSC 1999) and the city of
5.2. Recent Civil Service Employment
Trends: Overview
This section deals
with the actual size and HR mix in the civil service. Both points are important to understand some
changes in the patterns of the civil service employment. The choice of scope was dictated by data
availability. The main source of the information on the structure of employment
is Federal Civil Service Commission and Addis Ababa Civil Service
Commission. Table 1 shows the size of
the total number of Civil Service employment as a whole.
Table 1
Total Number of Civil Servants in
|
Fiscal Year |
2001 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
|
No.
Employees |
25216 |
28770 |
28944 |
29456 |
Source: FCSC. Personnel Statistics. Yearly
Publication,
One of the most
important characteristics of the civil service employment in AACA is observed
in the gender composition. The general trend in the civil service has been for
an increase in activity rates for women.
While it is a known fact that Women tend to hold low-skilled jobs more
than men do, it must be noted that more women are attaining responsible
positions than ever before. In order to
highlight these changes, we will look first at women's share in Civil Service
employment and then we precede the jobs that women hold in the Civil Service.
Figure 1: Share of Women in the Civil Service of
%
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
2000 2002 2004
2005 2006
year
Source: FCSC. Personnel Statistics. Yearly Report,
Age
composition is another important characteristic of the Civil Service
employment. Data obtained from AACA
Civil Service Commission and FCSC indicate that the share of young people is
relatively high, which implies the Civil Service have greater rate labour force
that could be work for most of their remaining years. High proportion of young
people could be an advantage for the Addis Ababa Civil Service because it leads
to a possibility of large HR to work for long years; but imposes a heavy burden
on the educational system, and makes capacity development one of the main HR issues. Table 2 below presents the recent age
composition.
Table 2
|
Age Group |
Male |
Female |
Total |
|
18-22 |
793 |
755 |
1,548 |
|
23-27 |
1,864 |
1,763 |
3,627 |
|
28-32 |
2,152 |
2,178 |
4,330 |
|
33-37 |
2,448 |
2,354 |
4,902 |
|
38-42 |
1,957 |
2,374 |
4,331 |
|
43-47 |
1,857 |
1,931 |
3,788 |
|
48-52 |
1,615 |
1,325 |
2,940 |
|
53-57 |
1,175 |
588 |
1,763 |
|
58-60 |
72 |
17 |