The public sector payroll has decreased by 1,223 officials this year, while salaries received have increased by half a million dollars. Among the three entities, there has been an increase of 4,334 officials compared to September 2024. The year started with 27,577 employees and by the end of the ninth month, it was down to 22,474, a decrease of 5,103 people, which represents 18.5% fewer workers. In one year, only MiBus has increased its staff by 341 workers, while Idaan has 59 fewer officials and the Sanitation Authority has 27 fewer. At the end of the year, many contracts in the public sector expire, and the example is what happened in January of this year, when there were only 7,063 temporary workers, indicating that in a single month, contracts were not renewed for 20,514 people.
Permanent On the permanent side, the payroll has increased by 3,880 officials, rising from 238,900 to 242,780 in nine months. And if we talk about salaries, they have increased by $9.9 million for permanent workers. Regarding the salaries received by temporary workers, they reached $27.1 million in September, which is $9.2 million lower than those earned at the end of 2024. The CSS had 383 more officials as of September, compared to the same month in 2024. Recently, the General Comptroller's Office published the report corresponding to September 2025, which describes that there are 265,254 state workers, while December 2024 ended with 266,477. In the case of the country's two main public universities, there has been a decrease in workers in the same period.
Companies The public companies with the most workers are MiBus (4,076), Idaan (2,739), and the Sanitation Authority (2,432).
Entities In the Central Government, the entities with the most employees are the Ministry of Education, with 67,587; the Ministry of Security, with 33,404; and the Ministry of Health, with 19,806. In the decentralized sector, the institutions with the most officials are the Social Security Fund (35,118), the University of Panama (9,786), and the Technological University (3,485). In terms of salaries received, at the beginning of the year, they were $448.3 million, and nine months later, they have risen to $448.8 million. The sector that has seen the main decline is that of temporary workers. At the University of Panama, it has been 246 people, and at the Technological University, it has been 363. This payroll, according to the comptroller, increases over the months, although this year it has not increased at the same pace as last year. One of President José Raúl Mulino's objectives at the beginning of his administration was to reduce the size of the state.
