One out of three vacancies in the federal public service is vacant. Lack of personnel affects servers and population

In the federal public service, a number brings great concern: more than a third of the vacancies approved for federal bodies are vacant, or 34%. And in 42 of the 192 existing areas in December, vacancy exceeded vacancies filled. The level, which has remained high over the past seven years, generates effects for servers, such as work overload. For society, there are flaws in services such as inspections in indigenous lands and medical expertise.

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The Ministries of Health and Education, the National Institute of Social Security (INSS) and the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai) are among those with the highest number of vacant posts. Data were obtained from the federal Transparency Portal and refer to the months of December, between 2016 and 2022. The number of vacancies per body — the approved vacancies — is defined by specific legislation.

For experts, technological developments and the effects of fiscal restrictions — such as the Fiscal Responsibility Law, from 2001, and the spending ceiling, from 2016 — are among the main explanations for the gap in functionalism. Fiscal rules define the slice of the Budget that can be used for personnel expenses.

Much claimed by entities, the opening of tenders is not seen by them as the solution to all problems.

— More tenders always give oxygen to the public service, but it should also be observed whether or not it is necessary to replace the server. Perhaps a number that was necessary a few years ago is no longer accurate — analyzes André Luiz Marques, executive coordinator of the Center for Public Policy Management at Insper.

Marques adds that, in many cases, the legislation that provides for vacancies had a “fat”. This is because, to increase the value, a new bill would have to be approved in Congress, which would make the process more bureaucratic and time consuming.

The Ministry of Management and Innovation in Public Services informed that vacating positions does not mean a lack of work force, but the guarantee of a margin that can be used by the state in case of need. Regarding the replacement of personnel, the government claims that there are regular entries of servers and that they will raise demands for strategic areas of the government.

tip problems

Unemployment also generates short-term effects on some organs. One of the most serious cases is that of the INSS — the municipality has 24,300 vacant posts, far more than the 19,100 filled.

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Most of the vacant positions are for social security technicians (20.9 thousand) and for social security analysts (2.4 thousand), essential for analyzing the granting of benefits. In the case of medical experts, responsible for expertise, the category estimates a shortage of more than 3,000 servers, without opening tenders for 12 years.

— In 2019, the average analysis time was eight days, while today it can reach nine months, in some Northeastern states — explains Francisco Cardoso, vice president of the National Association of Medical Experts.

Technology in the public sector is one of the main factors

Pointed out by experts, the modernization of public administration is seen as one of the main explanations for unemployment. With technological advances, some operational activities, which were previously performed by servers, have been digitized, which optimizes the functioning of the public machine, but, on the other hand, reduces the need for personnel.

This is the case, for example, of stages of an administrative process. With digitization, there is less demand for specific servers to receive documents related to a specific action, as they can be included in online channels.

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— This replacement mainly affects very repetitive activities, which do not involve a large load of decision-making content or require sophisticated reflection — explains José Vicente Mendonça, professor of Administrative Law at Uerj.

However, he points out that there are careers that, even in the future, will hardly be replaced, such as judges and auditors, who are at the top of civil service. This must happen because the entities have great lobbying power. Careers with little social capital may be more affected.

Government should look at tenders and resource management

Even if you have a manager who did the quantitative at the tip of the pencil, with the account, then you have to think about how much autonomy he has to hire or modernize. Not to mention he doesn’t vote.

As with the diagnosis of unemployment, finding a solution to the issue involves a series of factors, such as improvements in the management of bodies and assertive action by the federal government, in the opinion of specialists.

— Perhaps the biggest challenge is how not to be populist on a sensitive issue (hiring civil servants). You have to do the concentrations where you have the most delay, and for that you need planning. You will end up having to be unsympathetic with some area – analyzes Marques.

Mendonça believes that the first step is to carry out an x-ray of the demands and shortcomings of each federal agency, in the medium and long term. With this, budget allocation would be more efficient:

— A careful study of vacancies by sector should be carried out, preferably by a neutral sector. From there, it will identify what is a structural change due to technological advances and what is, in fact, a staff deficit. Wherever you have to hold a public tender, do so, to the extent of budget availability.