This section presents information on the numbers of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff:
- for public hospital services and their average salaries, by state and territory, over time and for 2020–21
- for private hospitals for 2016–17 (most recent data available).
In the data visualisation below, you can explore information on the staff working in public hospitals for 2020–21 and private hospitals for 2016–17, including details on the numbers of full-time-equivalent (FTE) staff.
Workforce
All data in these visualisations are available for download in the Data & downloads section of the MyHospitals website.
Hospital sector
These column graphs show the average full-time equivalent staff for public hospitals in 2019–20. Data is presented by type of staff. National data is available. For public hospitals in 2019–20, nurses made up 42% of staff.
Highlights
Public hospitals
In 2020–21:
- there were 422,000 FTE staff in public hospitals
- Nurses accounted for 2 in 5 (41%, 175,000) FTE staff
- Salaried medical officers accounted for 1 in 10 (12%, 52,200) FTE staff.
Between 2019–20 and 2020–21:
- there was a 5.4% increase in the number of FTE staff in public hospitals
- the number of Salaried medical officers increased by 4.9% and Nurses increased by 5.1%
- the average salary for staff employed in providing public hospital services did not significantly change
- average salaries for Salaried medical officers in public hospitals increased by 1.2%
- average salaries for nurses decreased by 0.4%.
Private hospitals
In 2016–17 (most recent available data):
- there were 69,300 FTE staff in private hospitals
- 1,400 FTE Salaried medical professionals were reported by private hospitals, accounting for 2% of FTE staff in both private free-standing day hospital facilities and private hospitals not specialising in same-day care
- 38,300 FTE Nurses were reported by private hospitals, accounting for 52% of FTE staff in private free-standing day hospital facilities and 56% of FTE staff in other private hospitals.
What other data is available?
Public hospitals
Data about public hospital staff and salaries can be found in the Hospital resources 2020–21 data tables
More information about the data, including Appendixes and caveat information, is available in the Info & Downloads area of the MyHospitals site.
Definitions of the terms used in this section are available in the Glossary.
Private hospitals
The staffing mix in private hospitals is different from that in public hospitals. This is because most medical services are provided by visiting medical specialists (who are not hospital employees), and the range of services provided is different.
The most recent data available for private hospitals and private free-standing day hospital facilities is for 2016–17, based on the Private Health Establishments Collection (PHEC) conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
The PHEC data were discontinued after the 2016–17 reference period and therefore data for 2017–18 onwards are not available.