Portugal’s Schools and Hospitals Add Staff, but Q3 Public Jobs Decline

Portugal’s State workforce keeps expanding when compared with last year, yet the latest quarterly scorecard reveals a slight pause. Public-sector payrolls were higher in September than in 2024, but they shrank modestly against the spring figures, a pattern that intrigues economists already drafting the next national budget.

A snapshot in hard figures

The Directorate-General for Public Administration and Employment, known locally as DGAEP, logged 759 402 jobs across the country’s administrations at the close of the third quarter. That level is 1.8 % above the same period one year earlier, translating into 13 137 additional posts. Central government alone supplied a surge of fresh contracts, while councils added a significant share. Against the previous quarter, however, headcount slipped 0.2 %, or 1 526 positions, underscoring how seasonal contracts still shape the public-employment cycle.

Classrooms and clinics behind the gain

Most of the year-on-year climb came from schools and hospitals. Ministries hired more teachers, nurses, early-childhood educators, technical staff and operational aides, roles that have been highlighted in repeated parliamentary hearings on service quality. Education accounted for the single largest block of new entries, partly because of expanded pre-school coverage promised in the government’s Recovery and Resilience Plan. Health followed, with the ongoing nurse-recruitment drive that aims to stem emigration of qualified professionals. Local authorities, encouraged by EU cohesion funds, also opened vacancies for superior technicians needed to manage digital-government projects.

Why the summer cool-off was expected

The small contraction from quarter two is not a mystery. At the end of every academic year, fixed-term contracts for thousands of substitute teachers and polytechnic lecturers expire. This seasonal effect sliced almost 2 700 jobs from the central administration column, more than offsetting modest growth elsewhere. Fiscal strategists at the Finance Ministry quietly welcome the dip, because it eases pressure on the payroll envelope they must draft into the 2026 State Budget. Public wages already absorb about a quarter of all government spending, and Brussels has repeatedly asked Lisbon to watch that line.

How Portugal compares on the EU map

Eurostat’s latest labour survey shows that employment in the combined public, defence, education and health branches reached 1.16 M workers in Portugal by mid-year. As a share of GDP, civil-service pay still stands 0.7 percentage points above the EU-27 average, a gap the European Commission labels “moderate but persistent”. By contrast, the national employment rate for the 20-64 cohort has moved marginally ahead of the bloc’s average, indicating the private sector continues to create jobs as well. Analysts caution that Portugal’s public workforce is older than the OECD norm, with four in every ten employees aged 55 or more, an imbalance that could force a larger recruitment wave later in the decade.

Looking ahead to the 2026 budget season

Government insiders argue the current headcount trajectory is broadly compatible with the spending ceilings outlined in the Stability Programme. A flatter payroll in late 2025 could make it easier to observe Brussels’ rules on structural deficit improvement, even after factoring in negotiated pay rises. Trade-union leaders counter that service quality will deteriorate if temporary contracts remain the norm in education and health. The Finance Minister has signalled no blanket hiring freeze but insists that any new recruitment must be tied to reforms financed by EU recovery money. Economists expect the forthcoming quarterly update in January to be decisive: a fresh uptick would confirm the public payroll’s upward trend, while another dip would reinforce the narrative of tightening belts before the next budget law.

In the meantime, residents are likely to notice two contrasting realities: more teachers and nurses in classrooms and wards than a year ago, yet a cautious approach from the Treasury as it navigates between service-delivery promises and fiscal discipline.