Number of state servants dropped more than 30% between 2014 and 2022. Education and Health had the biggest losses

In the last ten years, one of the main complaints of state employees is the reduction in staff. And the complaint is justified by the data: the number of civil servants fell by nearly a third between 2014 and 2022 — went from 230,910 to 158,618. Vacancies are higher in State Department of Education (Seeduc) and State Department of Health (SES), which lost 24.8% and 38.8%, respectively.

This is what the survey carried out by the column shows, based on information available in the Rio State Human Resources Books, prepared by the Undersecretary for Personnel Management. The biggest deficits were identified in the Security areas — Civil Police, Military Police, Department of Penitentiary Administration —, in addition to Health and Education.

Staff reductions were especially severe between 2016 and 2018, when there was a departure of 23 thousand servers from the table — the number dropped from 221.1 thousand to 198.1 thousand. During this period, they faced one of the worst crises in the state service, with continued delays in payments to active, retired and pensioners. Soon after, the state entered the Tax Recovery Regime, in 2017, which restricts the opening of public tenders and summons, depending on cash availability.

“It was a period of great suffering. The effect of a dire salary crisis is that it may have led to requests for dismissal, and migration to other work regimes. The state is losing its ability to act,” explains Deputy Flávio Serafini (Psol), who headed the Education Commission of the Legislative Assembly of Rio (Alerj) in the last legislature.

The lack of public tenders leads to a chain effect for the population as well, in the opinion of the Permanent Forum of Public Servants of the State of Rio de Janeiro (Fosperj). They argue that, with a leaner framework, there is an overload of active professionals.

“The demand is huge for few people serving in all sectors. This indicates that what is already bad can get worse. A problem created by the lack of investment by governments in the Rio de Janeiro service”, they explain, in a note.

Sought after, the Military Police reported that they are preparing the selection processes for training soldiers and officers later this year, to recompose the cadres – with 2,000 vacancies just for soldiers. Seap informed that it has already summoned all those approved in the 2003, 2006 and 2012 contests, and has already called 300 approved surpluses from the 2006 and 2012 contests. semester, 561 approved will begin the training course at the Police Academy and will join the force.

Seeduc informed that 2,000 teachers will be recruited for 18-hour and 30-hour regimes and that it will use resources from the Priority Allocation Bonus (GLP) and temporary contracts to fill the gap while waiting for a response on the possibility of new competitions. SES informed that it uses the Health Foundation for the replacement, in contracting CLT.

Education lost more than 21 thousand

One of the largest departments, the State Department of Education (Seeduc) had the largest reduction in contingent in the period — more than 21,000. In recent years, education professionals have been at the forefront of civil service movements to plead for recalls, and they represent the largest workforce among the entire public service.

In 2014, there were 85,900 servers linked to Seeduc, including education professionals and administrative staff, but ended 2022 with 64,500 active employees. According to Deputy Flávio Serafini (Psol), as president of the Education Commission, the shortage in the network was 7,300 teachers and 6,200 professionals from other careers, such as secretaries, inspectors and education agents. The information was presented by the state Department of Education in a public hearing at the House last December.

In order to reduce the vacancy level, Seeduc announced, last year, the call for 600 professors. However, Serafini claims that just under 400 were sworn in — either because they had given up teaching or even by death. According to him, this number would not even be enough to supply the number of servers that leave the network per year, estimated at 1,000 by the parliamentarian. And between 2016 and 2021, only 1,500 approved teachers were called, explains Flávio Lopes, director of the State Union of Education Professionals in Rio (Sepe) and a member of Fosperj.

Health: 38.8% less in staff

The biggest reduction, in percentage, was in the Health folder, which operated with 12.8 thousand servers in 2014 and the number plummeted to 7.8 thousand. Those who follow it assess that there are two main explanations for this: the outsourcing of service provision, with the expansion of Social Health Organizations (OSS), and the aging of staff. At the Rio de Janeiro State Server Assistance Institute (Iaserj), for example, there are only about 500 active statutory servers, according to André Ferraz, president of the Association of Health Surveillance Servers of the State of Rio and a member of Fosperj.

This is because, in the State of Rio, the last contest for the state health network took place in 2001, over twenty years ago. Since then, there have only been calls for those approved in the event, but it was not enough to meet the needs of the network. And the reduction in staff was accentuated with the implementation of the OSS, during the administration of former governor Sérgio Cabral. The model popularized the outsourcing of health services.