Civil servant cull looming? CBRE study on possible Government moves

Wellington City CBD: will civil servant ranks shrink? Photo / Mark Mitchell

Will the new incoming coalition Government cull civil servant numbers?

That question is at the centre of a new study out today from Zoltan Moricz, executive director and research head at CBRE, and research manager colleague Jorge Chang Urrea.

They said centre-right governments usually cut civil servant numbers which affects office occupancies.

A final deal between National, NZ First and Act might be landed today and signed by the week’s end after one last burst of talks in Auckland to resolve issues around ministerial portfolios.

CBRE said New Zealand’s civil service now employs around 60,078 people of whom 27,073 are based in Wellington.

“Party rhetoric tends to reinforce the centre right’s frugal approach to the public sector,” the researchers noted.

If cuts occur, that would have a big effect on Wellington where 45 per cent of this country’s civil servants work in the capital’s CBD.

The number of civil servants as a percentage of total number of employees in all industries rose from 1.6 per cent in 2000 to 2.4 per cent this year, with the proportion remaining stable under National but rising under Labour.

The Government is the largest single occupier of Wellington’s central-city office buildings.

Past trends indicate core civil service employment is more resilient than generally assumed under a centre-right Government, although it is less expansionary than under centre-left Governments, the researchers noted.

“Whether this holds true in the coming National-led coalition Government remains to be seen.

“Early indications show a stronger rhetoric from the coalition partners, which has already resulted in civil service responses such as apparent cuts planned by the Ministry of Business, Employment and Innovation,” the researchers added.

“This may be a precursor of things to come, although under previous Governments, cuts resulting in a shrinking civil service in a given year have been offset by growth overall during any administration’s era,” they noted.

The civil service occupies around 362,000sq m of Wellington CBD’s office space which is 30 per cent of the total.

But they’re not just in the centre of the city. Across all of Wellington, the civil service occupies 523,000sq m which is 43 per cent of the market total.