An average of 21.3% of all employees in countries of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) worked in the public sector in 2013, according to the Government at a Glance 2015 report.

The relative sizes of public sector employment ranged from 8% of all employees working in the public sector in Japan to almost 35% in Denmark and Norway.

Slovenia ranks somewhere in the middle along with Greece, Belgium, Canada and France by the size of public sector employment.

The OECD report attributes the differences to a large variety of activities undertaken by governments and the ways they deliver public service, including through cooperation with private partners.

In some countries, a large majority of healthcare providers, teachers and emergency workers, for example, are employed directly by the government.

In other countries many of these professionals are employed by organisations that are not state-owned, or as private contractors.

Even though many OECD countries reported a substantial drop in the number of public sector employees, average employment in the sector as percentage of total employment increased slightly from 21.1% in 2009.

Since that year, the percentage rose by two percentage points in Slovenia, about 2.5pp in Norway and 3pp in Switzerland, while dropping the most in Belgium, Poland and the UK, by around 1.5pp.

The increase in the percentage of people employed in the public sector is often a result of a decrease in the number of people employed in other sectors.

Slovenia saw an increase in public sector employment also as a percentage of total labour force, from 19.7% in 2009 to 20.9% in 2013.