One in five public officials is ready to work more hours each week to be paid more, according to a study published this Thursday by the administration, a few months before a reform which aims to expand merit-based pay for civil servants. Conversely, 5% of agents wish to reduce their working hours, even if it means being less paid, and therefore a total of 25% of civil servants wish to adjust their working hours, upwards or downwards, details the Management. General Administration and Civil Service (DGAFP) based on data for the years 2021 and 2022.
“Slightly fewer public sector employees than private sector employees wish to work more (20% compared to 23%)
,” specifies the administration. The disparities are however significant from one branch of the public service to another, with significantly more local authority agents wanting to work more (27%) than state (16%) or hospital civil servants (17%). . The DGAFP study is published while the Minister of the Civil Service Stanislas Guerini must present in the second half of the year a reform which aims in particular to
“better remunerate those who go out of their way to provide our public services”
.
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Union disagreement
Concretely, the government wants to expand the possibilities of financially rewarding the most deserving agents, an individualization of remuneration that the unions denounce in unison. Wednesday during a government seminar on work, Stanislas Guerini deplored that
“200,000 agents still do not work the 35 hours
,” according to comments reported by the newspaper
Le Parisien
. The DGAFP study published Thursday also reveals that only 13% of public officials want to change jobs (17% in the private sector).
Among these 13%, 5% say they have actively looked for a new job during the previous month and 8% want to change profession but have not carried out any recent search in this direction. According to Stanislas Guerini, one of the objectives of the upcoming reform is precisely to
“enter more easily, move more easily and sometimes be able to leave the public service more quickly”
.