After three years of contraction, Tunisia’s public service workforce returned to growth in 2025. Behind this moderate recovery, however, lie deeper transformations: an aging workforce, a gradual increase in female representation, a decline in the number of workers, and the continued concentration of public employment in education, security, defense, and healthcare.
After reaching a peak of 669,290 employees in 2021, Tunisia’s public service workforce declined for three consecutive years, falling to 647,155 employees in 2024. The year 2025 marked a turning point: the number of employees rose to 652,498, representing 5,343 additional positions and annual growth of 0.8%.
This recovery does not, however, bring public employment back to its 2021 record level. It merely brings the workforce almost exactly back to its 2018 level, when the public service had 652,225 employees. Over seven years, the total number of employees therefore increased by just 273.
This is one of the main findings of a report published on August 10, 2026, by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), based on administrative data from the INSAF system. Beyond the apparent stability of overall staffing levels, the study reveals a significant restructuring of Tunisia’s public administration.
A Public Service Workforce Becoming More Female
Men remain the majority, but their share is gradually declining. Their number fell from 416,200 in 2018 to 394,800 in 2025, a decrease of approximately 21,400 employees. At the same time, the number of female employees increased from 236,000 to 257,700.
Women therefore accounted for nearly 39.5% of public-sector employees in 2025, compared with approximately 36.2% seven years earlier. This reflects the continued feminization of public employment, although gender parity remains some distance away across the administration as a whole.
The other major transformation is demographic. Employees aged 45 to 49 now constitute the largest age group, with 120,164 people, representing 18.4% of the workforce. They are followed by those aged 40–44 and 50–54.
By contrast, the presence of younger employees is declining. Those under 30 accounted for only 9.5% of the workforce in 2025, compared with 13.8% in 2018. At the same time, the proportion of employees aged 55 and over increased from around 9% to 15.2%.
This trend presents a key challenge for the coming years: ensuring the renewal of skills as employees retire, without placing additional pressure on public finances.
Education Employs Nearly One in Three Public Servants
Public employment remains heavily concentrated around the state’s core governmental and social responsibilities. With 197,836 employees in 2025, the Ministry of Education alone employs more than 30% of public-sector workers.
It is followed by the Ministry of the Interior, with 96,146 employees; Defense, with 87,765; and Public Health, with 78,622. Together, these four ministries account for more than 70% of the total workforce.
Trends nevertheless differ across ministries. Between 2018 and 2025, healthcare employment increased, while the number of employees in Agriculture fell from 27,534 to 21,421. Higher Education also recorded a decline, as did several smaller government administrations.
The recovery observed in 2025 was largely driven by the Ministry of Education, which recorded a net increase of 6,787 employees. By contrast, Agriculture, Interior, and Defense continued to see their staffing levels decline.
Overall, 38,701 new hires were recorded in 2025, the highest level since 2018, compared with 33,358 departures. The net balance therefore returned to positive territory, with an increase of 5,343 employees following three consecutive years of contraction.
Fewer Workers, More Senior Civil Servants
The stability of overall employment also masks a change in the professional profile of public-sector employees. The number of civil servants increased from 503,100 in 2018 to 522,900 in 2025. They now account for 80.1% of the total workforce.
At the same time, the number of workers declined from 126,200 to 103,600, representing a decrease of nearly 18%. This contraction mainly affected Unit 1 workers, whose numbers fell from 63,800 to 36,900.
Among civil servants, Category A1 experienced the most significant growth, reaching 194,200 employees in 2025 compared with 151,300 in 2018. Categories A1 and A2 now account for more than two-thirds of all civil servants. The public administration is therefore becoming more highly qualified in terms of its statutory structure, but also increasingly concentrated in higher-level positions.
Salaries Rising, but in Nominal Terms
The average monthly net salary increased from 1,133.3 dinars in 2018 to 1,556.9 dinars in 2025, representing a cumulative increase of 37.4%. Including contributions, the average gross salary rose by 57.3%, reaching 2,698.1 dinars.
The increase was mainly concentrated in 2019 and 2020, followed by a significant slowdown between 2021 and 2023, and then renewed acceleration in 2024 and 2025. In 2025 alone, the average net salary increased by 5.6%.
These figures should nevertheless be interpreted with caution: the report presents nominal salaries and does not measure their evolution in terms of purchasing power after accounting for inflation.
Significant differences between categories also remain. In 2025, the average monthly gross salary reached 2,509.2 dinars for civil servants, compared with 1,460.5 dinars for workers. Among civil servants, it ranged from 1,758.3 dinars in Category D to 3,106.7 dinars in Category A1.
The INS report therefore depicts a public service whose overall size has changed very little since 2018, but whose composition has undergone profound changes. More female, more highly qualified, and older, Tunisia’s public administration is entering a phase in which generational renewal, knowledge transfer, and control of the public-sector wage bill will need to be addressed simultaneously.
