11,602 men are currently doing their civilian service, almost 3,000 of whom started in the first quarter of 2023. At present, this can cover 88 percent of the need for civil servants, said Claudia Plakolm (ÖVP), State Secretary for Youth and Civilian Service, at a presentation of these figures on Thursday.
A total of 2,937 men, 1.2 percent more than in the previous year, were assigned to one of the 1,515 facilities on the three entry dates in early January, February and March. At 88.1 percent, demand coverage was also slightly above the value of the previous year. However, Plakolm emphasized that the first quarter is always the one with the worst allocation rate, since many young men are still in training at this time. She appealed to future civil servants to apply for the first half of the year.
With 4,555 civil servants currently deployed, the rescue service is still the largest area of application, followed by social and disability assistance (3,165), care for the elderly (1,234), hospitals (982) and child care (528). According to the State Secretary, up to three-quarters of civil servants would remain in some form of their organization even following they had left the civil service. Many young men come into contact with the social sector for the first time as part of their community service, and that’s a good thing, because “we not only need more women in technology, but also more men in the social sector”.
Plakolm did not want to change the nine-month period of community service. More than 5,000 men decided to do community service in the first three months of this year and submitted their declaration of community service, which is an increase of three percent compared to the previous year and shows that community service is very popular, according to Plakolm.
But she wants to work on the “qualitative attractiveness” of civil service. The transition to social professions should be made easier for civil servants and the civil service should be creditable, for example for those who want to complete a nursing apprenticeship.
Since “figures that are difficult to classify repeatedly appear during the year” for community service, she wants to present current figures at the end of each quarter in the future. She also wanted to present a different area of application for civil servants each time. So today it was four paramedics that Plakolm invited to the press conference.