State's public service continuing to shrink despite Government achieving target of 14,000 cuts QUEENSLAND's public service is continuing to shrink despite the State Government achieving its target of 14,000 job cuts. New workforce figures released by the Public Service Commission show the government workforce shrunk by 14,653 workers in the last 12-months. As of June 30, there were 228,597 public servants employed by the State down from 243,250 at the end of June 2012. The reduction in the workforce is slightly more than the 14,000 job cuts targeted by the Newman Government after winning office in March 2012. At the time, Premier Campbell Newman said the LNP needed to deliver a public service taxpayers could afford and flagged as many as 20,000 job losses. Although the bulk of the cuts were made in the second half of last year, latest figures show almost 2000 more staff disappeared in the three months to June. Of those remaining, the number of highly paid public servants continues to increase with 25,792 employees now earning in excess of $100,000 a year, compared with 20,015 when the LNP won office. At the same time, those earning between $40,000 and $70,000 fell from 95,987 at the end of June 2012, to 83,894 this year.