Spain has reached a significant milestone in its public service: For the first time in a decade, the country now counts over 1.6 million permanent public officials. According to the latest Statistical Bulletin on Personnel in the Service of Public Administrations, the number of career civil servants in January stood at an impressive 1,634,510. This marks a turnaround after years of decline due to retirements and budget restrictions resulting from the Great Recession of 2014.
The Shift in the Public Sector: More Permanent Positions, Fewer Temporary Workers
The total number of public sector employees reached a new high of 3,037,432 in January 2025, marking the second consecutive half-year that the three-million threshold has been surpassed. However, this increase needs to be seen in context. While the number of permanent public officials is growing significantly, Spain is simultaneously seeing a decrease in contractual staff (610,426, a decrease of 10,161 year-on-year) and other temporary staff (792,496, a decrease of 33,179). The latter category primarily includes temporary workers, trainees, interns, and temporary or trust positions.
The increase in career public officials is largely due to the record public job offerings by the General State Administration in 2023 and 2024, which created nearly 40,000 new positions. Simultaneously, stabilization processes in the public service have intensified since 2022. A crucial law from December 2021 aims to reduce the temporary employment rate in the public sector from its current 32.8% to approximately 8% of structural positions. This ambitious goal, originally set for December 31, 2024, has not been fully met, potentially leading to sanctions from Brussels.
Challenges and the Slow Trend Towards Stabilization
Although a clear trend towards an increase in career public officials and a decrease in temporary employees is evident, contractual personnel have remained relatively stable at between 600,000 and 700,000 employees for over 20 years. Long-term figures show a slow but steady trend towards stabilizing public staffing levels. While the number of public officials fluctuated between 2005 (low point with 1,190,607) and 2012 (high point with 1,673,029), it stagnated at around 1.4 million before the pandemic. The current 12% increase in just two years, compared to an overall 2.2% increase in public service employment, demonstrates the dynamism of recent developments.
The strong growth of temporary workers, particularly interim staff, over the last 20 years, has caused the temporary employment rate in the public sector to rise above 32%. In the mid-2000s, there were around 350,000 temporary employees. Twenty years later, after continuous growth to cover structural positions, especially in municipalities and local councils—because they could not hire permanent officials for budgetary or other reasons—they reached a record high of 865,248 in January 2023.
Long Waiting Times and Municipal Challenges
The reversal in the proportion of temporary workers has been noticeable in the last two semesters. One difficulty in accelerating this trend is the long time lag between when a position is offered and when it is filled. Of over 513,000 stabilization positions announced in Spain since 2022, only 365,000 have been filled so far, according to the latest official public service figures.
Furthermore, municipalities and local councils pose a particular challenge. Instead of reducing interim positions or converting them into permanent ones through transparent selection processes, they often continue to hire more temporary workers. For this reason, the government, as EL PAIS recently reported, is preparing changes in the management of public workforces in cooperation with autonomous regions and local entities. It remains to be seen how these measures will affect the future composition of public service in Spain.
