One in eight of the 262,670 working-age people in the country, according to the 2022 census, works in the civil service, figures shared with Adhadhu by the Civil Service Commission (CSC) have shown.

The working age range is 15-64 years in the Maldives. The retirement age is 65 years. According to the latest census, there are 128,760 women and 133,910 men in that age group.

According to information shared by the CSC following a Right to Information (RTI) request from Adhadhu, 30,287 people are employed in the civil service as of May 2024. Of these, 67.5 percent are female and the remaining 32.5 percent are male.

The number of civil servants five years ago was 23,647 employees. With 30,127 employees by the end of 2023, the size of the civil service has increased by 27.4 percent in five years. Of these, 349 employees took paid leave in the last five years.

According to statistics for the past five years, an average of 1,500 people leave the civil service every year and an average of 5,850 employees join the civil service each year.

By 2023, there were 3,140 employees over the age of 55 in the civil service and an average of 278 people retired from the civil service in five years.

A total of 518 civil servants took leave to pursue higher education in the last five years. Only 1.71 percent of the employees got leave approved for higher education while working in the service.

Some 11.53 percent of the Maldives' total workforce is employed as government civil servants. This is equivalent to the proportion of civil servants in the population in some developed countries.