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Online services, but public administration reaches 185.4 thousand employees, a 23-year record
2026-03-13 11:29:20 / EKONOMI&SOCIALE
In the last quarter of last year, the number of employees in the state sector expanded further, reaching 186,581 people, while the average number for the entire year 2025 was 185,386 employees.
According to official INSTAT data, compared to 2024, public administration expanded by about 3 thousand employees or 1.6% more, marking the highest level since 2002.
In 2002, the country had over 3 million inhabitants and was served by around 186,000 public employees. Last year, 23 years later, the population suffered a drastic decline of 22%, dropping to around 2.36 million inhabitants, a contraction that reflects the scars of emigration and a declining birth rate.
However, instead of following this downward trend or reflecting the automation of services through investments of hundreds of millions of euros in digital platforms, the number of employees in the administration has increased rapidly, especially after 2018.
In 2014, funds for salaries and contributions for state employees were around 71.4 billion lek, while the number of employees in the public sector was around 163 thousand people.
Eleven years later, in 2025, the public administration has over 185 thousand employees and budgetary expenditures for personnel have increased to around 125.7 billion lek. From 2024 to 2025, the number of employees in the state sector has expanded by 12.7 percent, while expenditures on them have increased by 76 percent.
The growth has not only been in the number of employees and salary funds. In parallel, investments in digital governance have increased at a rapid pace in the last 6 years.
In 2025, funding for e-government increased threefold within the year, reaching 20.1 billion lek (over 200 million euros), from about 3.3 billion lek provided in 2019, to a total of 48.4 billion lek in 4 years, or almost 500 million euros.
The government has presented digitalization as one of the main pillars of modernizing the administration and improving services for citizens and businesses. Other Eurostat data show that Albanians use e-government more than the European Union average, because many services can now only be obtained online. 78% of Albanian citizens interacted with public authorities online in the previous 12 months, compared to 72%, which was the European Union average.
Despite these investments, digital public services have shown serious operational problems in recent months. The main e-Albania platform for electronic services for citizens and businesses has faced frequent interruptions, delays and inability to access, creating real difficulties in obtaining documents, carrying out administrative procedures and fulfilling legal obligations this year.
The transition to online services should have resulted in a smaller administration, but the figures show that for every citizen who leaves the country, the burden of administration on those who remain becomes increasingly heavy. In 2003, there were about 16 residents for every state employee, while in 2025 this ratio is expected to narrow to less than 13 residents for one employee, turning the public sector into a bloated structure that does not respond to the new demographic reality nor to the modernization paid for dearly by taxpayers./ Monitor
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