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Methodology

Public vs Private Employment (indexed) — Methodology and Sources

Last reviewed: 2026-05-17

What this measures

Public sector and private sector employment growth in Victoria, both indexed to 100 at FY 2014-15. Lets you see the two trajectories on a single axis without the scale of the private sector (~3.5M people) swamping the public sector (~400K).

How values are derived

For each FY:

  • Public sector employment = sum of VPSC headcount categories
  • Total employment = ABS 6202.0 Vic, FY mean of monthly Seasonally Adjusted observations × 1000
  • Private sector employment = total − public

Then both series are divided by their FY 2014-15 value and multiplied by 100, so both start at 100 and the chart shows percentage change from base.

Why indexed, not absolute

The brief's "frog in the pot" framing — multi-year drift hidden by single-year reporting — is most visible when you can compare the rate of growth, not the levels. Index to 100 makes the comparison clean.

Chart note: re-used comparator slot

This chart re-purposes the nsw comparator slot in the metric schema to carry the "private sector" line, because the LineMetric type supports only Vic + NSW + QLD overlays. The NSW colour (amber) is therefore used for "Private sector". A future schema extension could support multi-series charts properly.

Caveats

  • Public-sector figures: see Public Sector Headcount for the VPSC stitch methodology
  • Private sector calculated by subtraction — includes anyone employed but NOT in the public sector categories, which means small definitional differences flow into private
  • ABS Labour Force uses a household survey, so "total employment" includes self-employed, casuals, and workers across all industries

Sources

The Victoria Ledger

Victoria's last decade across fiscal, tax, workforce, capital, services, crime, and economy, plotted as continuous time series. Every figure traceable to an official primary source.

Last refreshed 2026-06-11. Data refreshes follow each new release from the underlying agencies.

Independent. No advertising, no sponsorship. Built by Rob Ward in Melbourne, on the unceded land of the Wurundjeri Woi-wurrung people of the Kulin Nation.