Table of Contents
Summarised by Centrist
The latest public service workforce figures run counter to the idea that Wellington is going through anything like deep austerity.
For voters being told the state has been hacked back to the bone, the figures suggest something more modest: a partial rollback after a major expansion, not a return to the leaner public service of the 1990s, 2000s or even most of the 2010s.
Headcount has come off its recent peak, but the state bureaucracy remains far larger than it was for most of the past three decades.
A chart shared by Charted Daily, using Public Service Commission data, shows full-time equivalent staff numbers sitting at 63,657 in late 2025. That is down from a peak of 65,699 reached in 2024, but still far above the levels seen before the post-2017 expansion.
The public service workforce fell from 35,829 in 1993 to a low of 29,020 around 2000. It then climbed steadily through the 2000s and 2010s before rising sharply in the Ardern era.
By 2020, it had moved above 50,000. By 2021, it was above 60,000. Even after the recent pullback, staffing remains near historic highs.
The drop from 65,699 to 63,657 is just over 2,000 full-time equivalent roles, a reduction of roughly 3%. In historical terms, it still leaves the public service far larger than it was for most of the modern era.
