51.3% of Local Government Officials Are Women... Only 34.7% at Grade 5 or Higher

A Total of 315,205 Local Government Officials Last Year
Growth Rate of Local Government Officials Slows Over Three Years

More than half of all local government officials nationwide are women, but the proportion of women among officials at grade 5 or higher stands at 34.7%, which is lower than that of men.

The Ministry of the Interior and Safety announced the '2024 Local Government Official Personnel Statistics' on May 29, based on data as of December 31 of the previous year. The total number of local government officials as of last year was 315,205, an increase of 0.6% compared to 313,296 in 2023. The rate of increase in local government officials has been declining over the past three years: 2.3% in 2022, 1.4% in 2023, and 0.6% in 2024.

The number of female local government officials was 161,710 (51.3%), an increase of 3,775 compared to 2023. After surpassing 50% for the first time in 2023, women have accounted for the majority for two consecutive years.

However, among 26,722 officials at grade 5 or higher, the proportion of women was 34.7% (9,283). The proportion of women among officials at grade 5 or higher has increased each year?27.4% in 2022, 30.8% in 2023?but still falls short of half.

Officials at grade 5 or higher account for 8.3% of all local government officials. The most populous rank is grade 6, with 91,618 officials, making up 30.1% of the total. The average time required for promotion from grade 9 to grade 5 is 22 years and 6 months, which is 5 months shorter than in 2023.

The average age of local government officials is 41.4 years, and the average length of service is 13.5 years. Gyeonggi Province has the largest number of local government officials (56,948), followed by Seoul (48,792) and North Gyeongsang Province (24,579). Sejong has the smallest number of local government officials, with 1,989.

By job category, general service officials number 313,272, accounting for 99.4% of the total. This is followed by special service officials (984), political appointees (670), and elected officials (279). By job series, the administrative series is the largest at 42.7%, followed by the facilities series at 12.7% and the social welfare series at 10.0%.

The number of newly appointed local government officials last year was 18,772, a decrease of 6.9% (1,401) from the previous year. Since 2021, when 27,769 officials were newly appointed, the scale of new appointments has been declining each year.

The number of retirees was 15,913, which has been increasing over the past 10 years, but the rate of increase has slowed. An official from the Ministry of the Interior and Safety explained, "This appears to be due to the increase in retirements among the baby boomer generation since 2015, which has now begun to decline."

The number of officials on leave was 31,130, an increase of 4.2% (1,253). Parental leave accounted for the largest share at 69.7%, followed by long-term care leave (22.1%) and family care leave (5.4%).

Kim Minjae, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, stated, "By accurately analyzing personnel statistics through the next-generation standard local personnel information system established in 2022, we will proactively and scientifically formulate personnel policies," and added, "We will continue to pursue innovation in the local personnel system based on population change data."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.