Kevin Rudd is said to be planning to slash 3,000 jobs from Australia’s Federal public service.

This is not official information.  The ACT’s Chamber of Commerce made the prediction at the weekend. Its chief, Chris Peters, is confident that he has a reliable budget leak.
The government will not confirm – or deny – this report until Budget night, on May 13.  But it has made no secret of the fact that it has been looking, very hard, for ways in which it can cut Federal spending.

John Howard also slashed public service jobs, when he took office, back in 1996.  By the end of his first year, 9,277 public sector jobs had gone.  By the end of his second year, he had slashed 22,344 jobs.

And the ACT economy had sunk into recession.  It was almost as hard, back then, to sell a house in Canberra as it is to sell one in Cincinatti now.

John Howard’s cuts would have pleased Peter Walsh, though.  The former Finance Minister, in the Hawke and Keating governments, had always said, privately, that he could see no reason why Australia should have a Federal public service that was as bloated as that of an oil  rich Arab kingdom.

Of course the cuts, predicted now, would be much smaller than those John Howard made, in his early years in government.

Naturally, though, Canberra’s public servants are still upset and worried.  Job security has always been a high priority, in their lives.

In fact, a survey conducted by the Public Service Commissioner’s office, itself, showed that the prospect of job security was the main attraction of public service life, to no less than 61 per cent of its recruits.

But the job market in Australia now is much stronger than it was back in 1996.

So strong, in fact, that the ACT’s Chief Minister, Jon Stanhope has already declared that he would like to hire some of those Federal public servants, who lose their jobs.

Their would be strong competition, too, from private employers.

In the longer term, though, job prospects in the Federal public service still look good.

Despite those savage cuts, in his early years, John Howard still ended his11 year term with almost 12,000 more public servants, on his payroll,  than he had started with.

11,876, to be exact.
But long term prospects still don’t pay short term bills. So do be kind to the next Federal public servant you see.