Islamabad, Mar 12 (IANS): Of the total 663,234 sanctioned posts in the Pakistan federal government, over 81,000 were currently vacant, according to official data.

According to data issued by the Establishment Division on Wednesday, the total number of sanctioned federal government posts stood at 663,234 but 581,755 employees and officers were available for these positions, showing a vacancy of about 81,479 posts, or 12.29 per cent of the total, reports Dawn news.

Similarly, a total of 399,265 employees were working in 206 autonomous bodies and corporations of the federal government against the sanctioned strength of 515,174, showing a shortfall of 115,909.

In the previous year, there were 492,564 sanctioned posts, of which 397,487 were occupied. This shows an increase of 4.59 per cent in the sanctioned and 0.45 per cent in the actual working strength for government bodies.

It follows that the public sector employment situation is a mixed trend of increase and decrease in the number of civil servants over the past 10 years.

The job opportunities in public sector almost remained fluctuant between 2009-10 and 2018-19.

However, during the last five years, from 2014-15 to 2018-19, the size of the federal government in respect of its sanctioned and actual strength of employees shows an upward trend of 6.17 per cent and 5.96 per cent (on average basis), respectively.

Meanwhile, there are 16,612 non-Muslim employees in the federal government, while 14,989 are Christians, 297 Ahmadis, 1,073 Hindus (caste), 173 Hindus (non-caste), 18 Sikhs and 62 belong to other religions.