The number of government employees has increased by 6,530 over the past three years, according to figures in the 2027 budget proposal submitted by the Ministry of Finance to the People’s Majlis.
At the end of 2023, the final year of the previous administration, the government employed 48,936 people. That figure has now reached 55,466. The wage bill is projected at MVR 14.4 billion.
The rate of recruitment has accelerated compared with the preceding period. Between 2020 and 2023 the workforce grew by 4,808 employees, an average of about 1,603 per year. Under the current administration the annual average has been roughly 2,177.
The headcount rose from 51,734 in 2024 to 53,879 last year before reaching the current total. Separate Civil Service Commission data previously indicated that the civil service alone had grown by more than 4,700 employees in recent years, with monthly salary expenditure rising substantially.
Public sector employment has long been a subject of economic debate in the Maldives, where a large share of the workforce is employed by the state. Finance officials have previously described the public sector as proportionally large relative to the private sector.
The budget documents do not detail the distribution of the additional posts across ministries or the proportion of permanent versus contract positions.
