Data sources, conventions and limitations | NSW Public Service Commission

About this report

This report contains analysis of NSW public sector Workforce Profile data; contingent labour data collected by the Department of Finance, Service and Innovation; and data from the I work for NSW e-recruitment system.

The Workforce Profile is a census of NSW public sector employees conducted by the Public Service Commission. Various data items used to inform workforce management and planning are collected, including the size, composition, location and demographics of the workforce. Participation is mandatory for all NSW government sector agencies and State owned corporations, and optional for NSW public sector agencies that are external to the government.

Data conventions

Numbers have been rounded to zero decimal places, and percentages to one decimal place. Consequently, percentages less than 0.04% will be reported as 0.0% after rounding. Rounding may also mean that individual items within a table do not tally to the corresponding total.

Census date

The census date was 27 June 2019.

Data limitations

The following data limitations are noted:

Data accuracy may be affected by omissions, inaccuracies or miscoded data provided by contributing agencies.
Differences in totals in some tables, compared to summary figures, may occur due to rounding, or missing, withdrawn or invalid data. Variations between the data in this document and that published by individual agencies may differ due to differences in timing, data definitions and methodologies employed.
All data represents a ‘snapshot’ at slightly different points in time and is subject to revision. Workforce Profile data includes all data submitted and verified as at 31 October 2019, recruitment data (I work for NSW data) was extracted on 28 June 2019, and contingent labour was that supplied by NSW Procurement for the financial year 2018-19.

Regional reference table

The regions presented in this report are from the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Statistical Areas Level 4 classification.

Region		ABS Statistical Areas Level 4
Metro	Sydney East	Sydney – City and Inner South Sydney – Eastern Suburbs Sydney – Inner South West Sydney – Inner West Sydney – North Sydney and Hornsby Sydney – Northern Beaches Sydney – Ryde Sydney – Sutherland
	Sydney West	Sydney – Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury Sydney – Blacktown Sydney – Outer South West Sydney – Outer West and Blue Mountains Sydney – Parramatta Sydney – South West
Regional	Capital Region	Capital Region
	Central Coast	Central Coast
	Central West	Central West
	Coffs Harbour – Grafton	Coffs Harbour – Grafton
	Far West and Orana	Far West and Orana
	Hunter Valley excluding Newcastle	Hunter Valley excluding Newcastle
	Illawarra	Illawarra
	Mid North Coast	Mid North Coast
	Murray	Murray
	New England and North West	New England and North West
	Newcastle and Lake Macquarie	Newcastle and Lake Macquarie
	Richmond – Tweed	Richmond – Tweed
	Riverina	Riverina
	Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven	Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven

Glossary

This section defines the terminology used in this report.

Term	Business definition
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees	Employees who identify as being of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent and who are accepted as such by the community in which they live.
Annual reference period	The annual reference period starts on the day following the last pay date of the previous financial year and ends on the last pay date of the current financial year.
Annual remuneration	The annual salary or salary package that an employee would receive if they worked full time. It excludes overtime, allowances and lump sum payments. It is different to actual earnings, which are affected by factors such as part-time work, overtime, allowances and lump sum payments.
ANZSCO	Australian and New Zealand Standard Classification of Occupations (ANZSCO ABS Cat. No. 1220.0). ANZSCO is a skill-based classification used to classify all occupations and jobs in the Australian and New Zealand labour markets. ANZSCO has five hierarchical levels: major group, sub-major group, minor group, unit group and occupation. Occupations are the most detailed level of classification. They are grouped to form unit groups, which in turn are grouped into minor groups. Minor groups are aggregated to form sub-major groups, which in turn are aggregated at the highest level to form major groups.
ANZSCO major group	ANZSCO organises occupations into progressively larger groups based on their similarities in terms of skill level and specialisation. The ‘major group’ level provides only a broad indication of skill. Major groups are: the broadest level of ANZSCO formed using a combination of skill level and specialisation to create groups that are meaningful and useful for most (statistical and administrative) purposes.
ANZSCO minor group	ANZSCO minor groups are: subdivisions of the ‘sub-major group’ classification mainly distinguished from other minor groups in the same sub-major group based on skill specialisation.
Census date	The last pay date of the annual reference period.
Census period	The last pay fortnight of the annual reference period.
Commuting ratio (out-to-in)	The number of employees who commute out of a region to another region for work compared to the number of employees travelling into the same region for work. For example, the Illawarra region has a commuting ratio of 2.4 in 2019, which means 2.4 workers commute out of the region for every worker commuting in.
Completed applications	The number of applications for ‘open’ or ‘filled’ I work for NSW requisitions for which the latest application completion date is in the reference period.
Diversity	Workforce diversity initiatives in the government sector aim to build a workforce that reflects the diversity of the wider community. Under the Government Sector Employment Act 2013, diversity groups include Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, women, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and people with disability. The Act also provides for a broader definition of diversity, including mature workers, young people and carers.
Diversity estimate	Diversity estimates are calculated if the diversity response rate threshold of 65% is met. Where response rates are below the threshold, actual rates are reported. The estimate is calculated by taking the number of diversity group members divided by the number of respondents to at least one diversity question in any given year and then multiplying by the total number of employees. For this reason, estimates are always higher than actual rates.
Diversity response rate	Calculated by taking the number of employees who identify as belonging to any combination of diversity group classification, including ‘English not first language spoken’, ‘racial, ethnic, ethno-religious minority group’, ‘disability’ and ‘Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander’, and dividing by the total number of employees.
Employment arrangement	A non-casual employee’s work arrangement, classified as either full time or part time.
Employment categories	Based on a worker’s employment contract with an agency. Categories include: ongoing – employed on a continuing basis to perform ongoing functions temporary – non-casual employees who do not have ongoing conditions of employment or individual employment contracts, and who are employed for a specific period of time casual – employees engaged to perform work ‘as required’ and who are paid at an hourly rate equal to the relevant classification of the position, with a loading executive – includes Public Service senior executives employed under contracts starting before the implementation of the Government Sector Employment Act 2013 (GSE Act); senior executives employed under Division 4 of Part 4 of the GSE Act; and other public sector senior executives under contract arrangements, including Health, Transport and Police executives. contract – employees (non-executive) who are employed via a fixed-term individual contract. Excludes contractors and consultants engaged on a fee-for-service basis other – all other employment categories including cadets, trainees, apprentices, retained staff, sessional workers, seasonal workers and statutory appointees.
Full-time equivalent (FTE) workforce	A standardised way of describing the size of the workforce based on the total number of ordinary time paid hours worked (excluding overtime and unpaid work). ‘FTE workforce’ describes the total number of full-time employees required to account for all ordinary time paid hours worked. It is not a count of the number of employees. For example, two employees who both work half the standard number of full-time hours will together be counted as one FTE employee. The FTE workforce can be measured during a period, such as the last pay period of the financial year (census period). Since the same method of counting can be applied to each agency, FTE staffing figures provide the most accurate indication of resource levels within the NSW public sector.
Gender pay gap	Defined by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development as the difference between the median salary of males and females relative to the median salary of males. Employee salary is the full-time base remuneration of the role, regardless of whether the employee is working part time or full time.
Headcount	Total number of employees at a given time. Employees with multiple periods of employment in a single agency during the year are counted only once by most agencies. However, the payroll systems used by some agencies do not link employment periods, so these agencies report each period of employment as a separate employee. Employees with periods of employment in different agencies during the year are counted as separate employees in each agency. In the health sector, this also applies to employees working in more than one Area Health Service. Headcounts include all employees who worked during a period, even if they only worked for one day. Total employees (headcount) figures and full-time equivalent (FTE) figures are both reported because they provide different perspectives on the workforce. FTE translates the headcount figures into a proportion of the hours worked by an FTE staff member. For example, a person working one day per week would be counted as 1.0 under the headcount and 0.2 under FTE (that is, they work 20% of the time that a full-time employee works). Headcount figures therefore provides a picture of how many people were employed during the period, whereas FTE is a more accurate indicator of resource levels.
Job advertisements	The number of ‘open’ and ‘filled’ I work for NSW requisitions where the latest application completion date is in the reference period.
Job mobility	Changes in the employment status of an employee, including commencement in an agency, promotion to a higher level, transfer from one agency to another, and exit from the agency or public sector.
Language first spoken as a child	The language the person first spoke as a child, as distinct from the preferred language or language usually spoken at home.
Median	The middle value of a distribution, where half of the values are above and half are below. The median is often preferred over the mean in calculating the middle ground in a set of values as it is less sensitive to extreme values than the mean.
Non-casual employees	All persons engaged to work in a NSW Government agency and paid via the agency’s payroll system, excluding employees working for an hourly rate (casual, sessional, seasonal and retained staff).
NSW employed persons	The ABS defines employed persons as those aged 15 or over who, during the reference week: worked for one hour or more for pay, profit, commission or payment in kind in a job or business, or on a farm (comprising employees, employers and own account workers); or worked for one hour or more without pay in a family business or on a farm (i.e. contributing family workers); or were employees who had a job but were not at work and were: away from work for less than four weeks up to the end of the reference week; or away from work for more than four weeks up to the end of the reference week and received pay for some or all of the four-week period to the end of the reference week; or away from work as a standard work or shift arrangement; or on strike or locked out; or on workers’ compensation and expected to return to their job; or were employers or own account workers, who had a job, business or farm, but were not at work.
Ongoing employees	Those employed on a continuing basis to perform ongoing functions.
Openings	The number of available positions for ‘open’ and ‘filled’ I work for NSW requisitions where the latest application completion date is in the reference period and the number of openings was less than 99. This calculation excludes requisitions that were recorded as having unlimited openings.
Paid unscheduled absence	Sum of hours of paid sick leave and paid carers leave hours taken during the reference period. This includes employees with a valid sick leave entitlement and annual FTE not missing.
Part-time employees	Employed persons who usually work fewer than 35 hours a week. (See Australian Bureau of Statistics, Labour Statistics: Concepts, Sources and Methods, cat. no. 6120.0.)
Person with disability	A person who identifies as having a disability – that is, having one or more of the following limitations or restrictions: a long-term medical condition or ailment speech difficulties in their native language a disfigurement or deformity a psychiatric condition a head injury, stroke or any other brain damage loss of sight or hearing incomplete use of any part of their body blackouts, fits or loss of consciousness restriction in physical activities or physical work slowness at learning or understanding any other condition resulting in a restriction.
Public sector exit rate	The number of employees who left the public sector during the year as a proportion of the average number of people employed during the year.
Senior Executive cohort	Public Service Chief Executive Service, SES and award-based senior executives (senior sfficers and their equivalents), and senior executives employed under Division 4 of Part 4 of the Government Sector Employment Act 2013.
Senior leader	Government sector employees with a salary equal to or higher than$161,707, who lead people and/or services. Excludes Health Service roles of a specialist or technical nature with no leadership or managerial responsibilities, and Justice roles of a statutory or institutional character (for example, judges and magistrates).
Separation rate	The number of employees who left an agency during the year as a proportion of the average number of people employed during the year.
Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4)	Statistical Areas Level 4 (SA4s) are geographical areas within an ABS geographical framework for the collection, analysis and release of regional data. They are the largest sub-state regions in the Australian Statistical Geography Standard, designed for the output of such data as the ABS Labour Force Survey data, which reflects labour markets within each state or territory.
Successful applications	The number of I work for NSW applications that have a hired date, for ‘open’ or ‘filled’ requisitions where the latest application completion date is in the reference period.
Temporary employees	Non-casual employees who do not have ongoing conditions of employment, do not have individual employment contracts and who are employed for a specific time period.
Tenure	The length of employment within an agency.
Time to hire	The average number of weeks from the latest application completion date to hired date, for ‘open’ and ‘filled’ requisitions with one opening and where the latest application completion date is in the reference period.
Trainees, cadets and apprentices	Staff members whose employment conditions require them to undergo a designated training program as part of their vocational development.

Data downloads

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