The Principality of Asturias reduced its workforce last year, slipping from second to fourth place in the per capita ratio of civil servants. This shift comes from new data gathered by the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function. At present, 42,668 of Asturias’s 61,218 civil servants are employed by the regional administration. Three autonomous communities—Extremadura, Navarra, and Aragón—currently have the highest public employment relative to their populations.
Asturias hit its peak public employment during the pandemic, when staffing reached 43 workers per 1,000 residents at the start of 2021. This spike reflected the added health and education staff required to respond to intense COVID-19 pressures in the region. At that moment, Asturias stood as the second highest autonomous community for the share of public servants in relation to its population. By the following year, the Principality had trimmed its workforce from 43,571 to 42,668, reducing the rate to 42 per 1,000 and dropping behind Navarra and Aragón, which reported 44 and 43 public employees per thousand, respectively. Extremadura remained the leader with roughly 49 civil servants per 1,000 inhabitants. Conversely, the Balearic Islands, Catalonia, and Madrid were the lowest in staff per capita among the regional governments. The regional context reflects a broader national pattern in which population size and service delivery needs help shape staffing levels.
The Extremadura region leads the broader classification when counting public employees at the state and municipal levels within its territory, with a rate around 86 per 1,000 inhabitants. In this framework, Asturias and Aragón sit mid-pack, trailing Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Navarre, Madrid, and the Canary Islands. In practical terms, just over two-thirds of Asturias’s civil servants work for the Principality itself, underscoring the region’s heavy reliance on public administration to fund health, education, and social-health services.
During last week’s regional status discussion, the Principality’s head publicly questioned the Citizens spokesperson about potential cuts. The spokesperson indicated that downsizing is not the priority. Instead, the emphasis was on reducing bureaucratic barriers and accelerating digitalization within regional government to improve efficiency and agility.
The transfer of responsibilities in education and health has positioned Asturias as a key economic driver for the region over the past two decades. The regional workforce grew from about 4,000 employees when the autonomous community was established in the 1980s to more than 40,000 by January 2020, a milestone surpassed shortly before the pandemic began. The economic downturn of 2010 paused wage growth in the first budget section, but the subsequent recovery led to a steady expansion of the workforce, peaking around 40,330 in 2020, with a sharp increase to 43,571 by the middle of 2021 and a later high of 43,778 for the first half of that year. The latest data released by the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function shows that the downward trend has since moderated, even as payroll costs continue to rise in response to inflation and policy changes for professional progression, especially for health workers. The payroll item is projected to exceed 2,000 million euros for the first time in the regional budget as inflation persists and the salary components for health personnel are updated, with a total budgetary line edging toward 5,000 million euros when all public payroll costs are accounted for. Source: Ministry of Territorial Policy and Public Function.
Looking ahead, Asturias faces the challenge of implementing workforce reductions without compromising service delivery. The regional administration expects that 11,000 civil service posts in the autonomous community will remain stable, avoiding additional costs for state delegations, agencies, and municipalities that have already borne structural duties historically filled by temporary staff. The ongoing staffing strategy will need to balance cost containment with the essential delivery of health, education, and social services across the Principality.