In relation to the number and percentage of civil servants and public sector workers in each of the 27 EU countries, I would advise the Deputy that this information is not compiled by Eurostat and as such is not readily available. The OECD do not collect this information annually, but instead use the results of the Comparison of Employment in the Public Domain (CEPD) survey. The results of the most recent survey from 2005 are presented in the table below, and are available in the OECD publication "Government at a Glance." The OECD point out that no international comparative data presently exist for public employment due to methodological difficulties and differing definitions.
Due to the difficulty of standardising figures across 26 countries, these figures are not directly comparable with annual figures given by the Department of Finance for public service employees. The table below shows that the employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force in Ireland is close to the average.
Employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force, 2005
|
%
|
Norway
|
28.8
|
Sweden
|
28.3
|
France
|
21.9
|
Finland
|
21.3
|
Hungary
|
19.2
|
Belgium
|
17.1
|
Canada
|
15.6
|
Ireland
|
14.7
|
United Kingdom
|
14.6
|
Italy
|
14.2
|
United States
|
14.1
|
Greece
|
14.1
|
Australia
|
13.6
|
Portugal
|
13.4
|
Poland
|
13.4
|
Spain
|
13.0
|
Czech Republic
|
12.9
|
Netherlands
|
12.8
|
Mexico
|
11.1
|
Germany
|
10.4
|
Austria
|
10.2
|
Slovak Republic
|
9.5
|
Turkey
|
9.2
|
Switzerland
|
7.1
|
Korea
|
5.5
|
Japan
|
5.3
|
OECD 26
|
14.3
|
Data are not available for New Zealand, Denmark, Luxembourg and Iceland.