The proportion of staff employed at sub-national levels of government is an indicator of the level of decentralisation of public administrations. Larger shares of government employees employed at the sub-national level suggests that local and regional governments have greater responsibility for providing public services. While decentralisation allows for greater responsiveness to local needs and priorities, it can also result in variations in service delivery within countries.
In 2019, general government employees employed at the sub-national level made up more than half of all general government employees in 17 OECD countries for which data were available. Federal states, such as Belgium, Germany, Spain and Switzerland, are among the countries with the largest share of general government employees working at the sub-national level. In contrast, unitary states, such as Ireland, Israel and Turkey, tend to have most general government workers concentrated at the central level. However, unitary but decentralised countries, such as Finland, Norway or Sweden, also prove to have a small share of central government employees (Figure 3.3).
Between 2013 and 2019, 19 OECD countries experienced increases of general government staff employed at the central level. On average across OECD countries with available information, the average annual growth rate in central government employment was almost stable at 0.6% over this period. The highest average annual growth rates were in Turkey (3.3% per year), Luxembourg (2.7%) and the United Kingdom (2.4%). Conversely, the number of general government staff employed at the central level fell the fastest in Estonia (by 3% per year), Spain (1.2%) and Lithuania (0.9%) (Figure 3.4). In the United Kingdom, the growth is specific to central government, as sub-national government employment has fallen since 2013, keeping the overall numbers of general government staff almost stable over this period. There are a variety of reasons for such changes in employment at the central level, for example they could be due to the age composition of the government workforce, capacity building, political decisions or administrative reforms.
