According to Michel Barnier in the JDD, France has more civil servants than all its European neighbors and yet the latter are doing very well. According to Emmanuel Lechypre, the Prime Minister is right and intends to save money.
“Our European neighbors have far fewer civil servants than France and do not seem to be any worse administered.” This is the shock release of Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Sunday in the Journal Du Dimanche. Is he right? On the number of civil servants, yes.
It is very difficult to compare the figures of civil servants between countries because they are not the same scopes or employment contracts. So we can only trust the OECD, whose specialty is to make comparisons between countries. And according to the latest available figures harmonized by the OECD, public employment represents 21% of total employment in France. This is more than all our big neighbors. It is only 17% for the United Kingdom and Spain, 14% for Italy and 11% for Germany for example. The OECD average is 19%. There is only one country that does significantly more, and that is Sweden (29%).
If we take a broader notion to take into account the differences between countries and we look at the administration, defense, education, health and social action workforce, France is overtaken by Sweden and Belgium but remains well above the international averages. .
This is also true by profession: in almost every public service, the ratio between administrative and operational staff is higher than elsewhere. In France, there are more administrative staff in almost all major public sector activities. But this is not true across the country. It can go from single to double. For example, there are 47 agents per 1,000 inhabitants in Ain, compared to 95 in Haute-Vienne.
A productivity problem
The annual duration of full-time work in the public service in 2022 is on average 1,606 hours excluding teachers (1,556 hours including them). It is almost equal to the legal duration of 1,607 hours but lower than that of employees in the private sector (1,699 hours). French civil servants therefore work less over the year than in the private sector. They work as much during the week but have more holidays and are absent more than private sector employees.
The main problem is productivity: if we look at European studies which reduce the amount of public expenditure managed per euro of salary or per civil servant, productivity is much lower in France, from 26% to 35% per compared to Germany depending on the activities, from 10% to 15% compared to the rest of the euro zone. They are also more poorly paid.
Business Cyprus: Civil servants, the return of job cuts – 21/10
Savings to be made on the territorial public service
There are 5.8 million civil servants today in France. The savings target that is circulating is 10% over the coming years. A reduction which will be helped by retirements. There are 150,000 civil servants who retire each year.
Looking at the different public functions, whether the State, the territories or the hospital, it is in the territories that jobs have increased significantly, by 46% over the period 1997-2022, i.e. an annual average of 1 .5%. Twice as much as private employment compared to 5% for the state civil service. This is where there is some rationalization to be done.
In addition, Michel Barnier talks about all state operators, such as France Travail, Météo France, the CNRS. It is also in these services that he intends to make workforce reductions.
SG with Emmanuel Lechypre
