South Africa does not really stand out among middle and high income countries for the share of public sector employment in total, but we stand out in terms of how much we spend on the salaries of public sector workers. The first chart shows the data for all countries for which data is available and the second zooms in to focus on a subgroup of countries. South Africa’s public sector wage bill was around 12% to GDP in 2017, compared with a sample mean of around 8%, while wages represent about 35% of total expenditure in the public sector, compared to a sample median of 25%. The public sector is slightly larger than in the countries in the sample, representing around 18% of total employment compared with a sample median of 15.5% across countries.
