Autonomic Public Employment Up 13.1% Post-Pandemic
Public employment continues to grow in Spain. On this occasion, you have to stop at autonomieswhich have experienced constant increases in employees since 2019. If in the second quarter of that year 1.8 million employed were reached, in the same months of 2025 they slightly exceed 2 million, 13.1% more, according to the latest data of the Active Population Survey (EPA). 54% of them are career officials compared to 78% who are in the state public sector.
The evolution accelerated in 2020, the year of pandemic par excellence. But, since then it has not stopped increasing the number of employees of the autonomous administrations. These concentrate 62.2% of all the use of public administrations in Spain And, although the increase is generalized, that of autonomies does not cease and progresses at a good pace although with some stops. The increase in Autonomous communities It is the one that rises the total average in these six years on employment in the public sector, since in the central administration there have even been setbacks. Public work represents 15% of the total in Spain.
This same year, There are several communities that have had very high growth. This is the case of Estremadura That, the second quarter increased its public templates by 8.34% compared to the first quarter. Balearic Islands, in the same period, 4.42%, and Aragon, 3.79%. Cantabria rose its staff 2.62% and Galicia, 2.6%. Although it has been the Autonomous City of Ceuta that most increased its payrolls in the second quarter of the year in relation to the first, nothing less than 20.34%. These five autonomous communities and Ceuta exemplify the tonic that has been produced from the pandemic.
The EPA series shows that, from 2021 when the 2 million barrier was exceeded regional employeesthese have been oscillating. It has not been lowered again from that amount, although there have been quarters with more occupied. To the Autonomous Administration Compete matters as intensive in employment as education and health. It is in these sectors where they occur higher and that they absorb the most occupied, although in the educational field there are numerous movements of people. Administration appears thirdly as the area that concentrates the most officials after education and health. Social services, equally competence of the Autonomous Communities, are another of the work areas where, more and more, more people work.
By number of personnel, Andalusia leads the list with 500,000 employees at the service of your regional government. Catalonia and Madrid are the following, with more than 250,000 the first and more than 230,000, the second. These amounts enter into logic because they are autonomies with more inhabitants of the country.
Which Give an idea of a certain disproportion is the ratio of public employees per thousand inhabitants. Thus, if the average of all autonomous communities is 36.7, there are regions that exceed it long such as Extremadura (56.8) and Navarra (51,3), according to the data of the Statistine Bulletin of the personnel at the service of the AAPP. One of the explanations is that regions such as Extremadura or Castilla y León, which has 100,000 public employed offer less job opportunities in the private sector.
The reason for the ratio of Navarrawidely industrialized autonomy and with a high standard of living, out of political reasons. The Foral Community is one of the least populated in Spain (it does not reach 680,000 inhabitants) and gives work to 20,000 people in the public sector. In the same case it is located, Cantabria. La Rioja, with 10,000, is the one that presents the least occupied in the public sector, but it is also the least populated.
In relation to wages, the highest as a rule are the ones that pay The Community of Madrid. To set them, the per capita income of the region and the high cost of life in it is taken into account. On the contrary, One of those that offers lower salaries to its employees is Andalusia for the same reasons but vice versa: lower income per capita and lower cost of life. The priority policies of each regional government and inflation also influence, which varies between autonomies, sometimes quite.
Keep in mind that autonomies are free to manage certain aspects salary aspects of their employed public. Others, such as the basics of the payroll update according to The IPCcorresponds to the State, which is the one who sets the percentage of rise in the Council of Ministers. A fact: in 2024 five autonomies (Castilla La Mancha, Extremadura, Murcia, Andalucía and Aragon) allocated 50% of budgeted resources for said exercise to the payment of public payrolls. In absolute terms, there are almost 92,000 million euros that the whole of the regional governments are spent on the salaries of the administration’s staff, which in relative terms involves more than ten percentage points above the level of 2019, six years ago, before the years of the pandemic in which the public jobs were fired.