"At last we see light at the end of the tunnel". Ana Fernández, director of an public examinations training center in Oviedo, said yesterday, given the prospect of a wide offer of public employment that the central government, regional administrations and unions are preparing for the next three years. "There are public examinations that have been suspended since 2008", emphasizes the directors of the academies, a sector that is preparing for a high number of students. The figures are very high. The Asturian Executive has not disclosed how many positions will be available in the Principality. According to some estimates, in the next three years could be around 5,000 positions, of which a large majority will correspond to health and education sectors. To this figure we should add the offers that will be raised by the central government - for example, for State security forces and bodies, for Post Office ... - and for local governments. In short, a whole binge of public employment after several years of strict abstinence.
"There is more movement, so many people call us to ask about it", Vanesa Fernández says, director of another training center. In her view, the boost in the number of registrations will occur rather after the summer. The experience tells her that "the specialized candidate does not wait for the selective processes to be called, but begins to prepare as soon as there is a little movement". If everything went as planned, the Asturian Administration's acting official rate would go from around 25 percent to 8 percent.
The years of crisis, a period started around 2008, have taken their toll on public employment in Asturias. The calls were subjected to severe restrictions and the hiring of acting officials increased in a very remarkable way. The retirement replacement rate was kept to a minimum, with only slight hiring in strategic areas such as education and health.
According to data provided to this newspaper by the Ministry of Finance and Public Administration, the Principality had at the beginning of 2016 - last available register - a total of 38,653 workers, a figure that included the 2,788 members of the University of Oviedo. Of this total, 9,797 were acting officials: that is, 25.3 percent. In the largest sector, health, the acting official rate was 35 percent (5,251 out of a total of 14,989). In education, it stood at 28.4 percent (3,489 out of 12,283).
In education there were calls for public employments last year, and in health, they are being developed this year. Since the objective of the negotiating parties is that after three years the government's acting official rate will have fallen to 8 per cent, a credible approach indicates that the Asturian Government will call for about 5,000 permanent positions in the next three years. So far, the only sector that has disclosed specific data is the health sector, talking about calling for between 2,500 and 2,700 positions.
