Number of government jobs per inhabitant comparable in Flanders and Wallonia

According to the study by Jean Hindriks, professor of economics at UCLouvain, and Alexandre Lamfalussy, researcher at the Institute for Statistical Analysis of the same university, the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) in the private sector increased from just over 2 million in 2015 to slightly more than 2.2 million in 2023, an increase of 10 percent. The number of self-employed people reached 739,000 in 2015 and 891,000 in 2023, an increase of 20 percent.

Over the same period, government jobs in the strict sense increased by 5.4 percent to just under 963,000 FTEs, while government jobs in the broad sense, which also includes heavily subsidized health and social services, increased by 8.6 percent to 1,382,675 FTEs.

One in ten government jobs

In 2022, there were 10.4 public sector jobs per 100 inhabitants in Flanders, compared to 11.1 in Wallonia and 7.7 in Brussels.

The figures also remain comparable in the communities and regions, where 75 percent of FTEs work in education: 1 FTE per 25 inhabitants in Flanders, compared to 1 FTE per 25.8 inhabitants in the French-speaking part of the country.