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Wanted: 50,000 more French civil servants

The Local France
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Wanted: 50,000 more French civil servants
In 2013 there were 5.6 million civil servants on France's payroll. Photo: Crowd. "

A whopping 20 percent of France’s working population is on the payroll of the state. But new figures reveal that there are still 50,000 posts that need to be filled.

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According to a budget report written by Socialist MP Valérie Rabault for the French parliament and seen by the Journal du Dimanche, there are around 50,000 empty posts in the French civil service.

The figures relate to vacancies topped up at the end of 2014, with the education sector being home to most openings.

The empty posts, which include 13,300 teachers, 5,000 soldiers and 4,300 police officers have saved the state some €228 million last year.

According to the report, the primary cause is a “latent period” between the decision to employ someone and actually hiring them as well as a lack of candidates, particularly in the education sector. 

The news comes in spite of French President François Hollande’s promise to recruit 60,000 employees in the education sector by 2017 during his presidential election campaign.

But the large number of vacancies is not a new phenomenon. At the end of 2012 and 2013 there were around 47,000 empty posts.

The figures follow revelations last year that an incredible one in five French people is employed as a civil servant.

Data from the French statistics agency INSEE showed that in 2013 (when the last stats were available) there were 5.6 million civil servants on France’s payroll, an increase on the previous year’s total by 1.5 percent.

It was a less than one percent jump (.3 percent hike over 2011), though enough to continue the nearly yearly growth seen in the French civil service since 1980, French magazine L’Express reported at the time.

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