The Disappearing Workforce of Local Government — What Halved Exam Ratios and Surging Youth Resignations Reveal

As the final installment of the Local Structural Issues series, this article focuses on the crisis of the people who sustain local government.

Competition ratios for local civil service exams have fallen throughout the past decade, from 6.6 in FY2015 to 4.1 in FY2024[1], down 2.5 points in ten years.

The fall, though, is not only about fewer applicants. In the same survey the number of examinees dropped 28%, from 537,000 to 388,996[2], while over the same years the number who passed rose 16%, from 82,000 to 94,999[2]. The ministry itself writes that "the number of examinees has long been on a downward trend, while the number passing has been rising." Local governments are hiring more than they used to. The falling ratio comes from both fewer applicants and more hires.

This trend is not confined to rural areas. Even Tokyo's general administrative exam (Category IB) saw its ratio drop from 5.6× in 2019 to 2.4× in 2023[3]. In FY2024, 26 prefectural governments fell below a 4.0× ratio[4].

Teachers face the same structural pattern. According to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the overall teacher hiring exam ratio for FY2025 placements was 2.9×[5] (a record low), while elementary school ratios fell to 2.0×[5]. Examinee numbers have declined for 12 consecutive years, with significant regional variation — the lowest ratio was 1.8× in Toyama Prefecture.

Seen over the long run, the headcount sustaining local government has fallen a great deal. Local government employees peaked at 3,282,000 in 1994[6] and stood at 2,809,298 as of April 1, 2025[7] — down 473,000, or 14.4%.

They are not still falling, however. The ministry writes that "staff numbers declined from their 1994 peak, but since 2017 the trend has been slight growth to flat"[8]. The floor was 2,737,000 in 2016, and the count has since recovered by about 70,000 to the 2,809,000 of 2025. General administration has in fact grown for 11 consecutive years since 2015[9], with disaster management about 3.7 times its 1994 level, child guidance centres about 3.3 times, and welfare offices and tourism about 1.8 times. What has changed is not the total but its allocation across functions. The felt shortage of hands cannot be explained by headcount alone.

The Demographic Reality Behind "Youth Flight from Public Service"

The narrative that "young people no longer want to be civil servants" only skims the surface. The fundamental issue is that the young population itself — the pool of potential civil service applicants — is shrinking.

As of October 2024, only two prefectures — Tokyo and Saitama — experienced year-on-year population growth[10]. Forty-five prefectures saw population decline, with the national total at 123.8 million (down 550,000 or 0.44%), marking 14 consecutive years of decline. Eighteen prefectures now have decline rates exceeding 1%.

In other words, the falling exam ratios are the combined product of "declining public service appeal" and "shrinking absolute numbers of examinees." The latter factor is structurally irreversible.

The Starting Salary Gap and Entry Barriers

Part of why young people avoid public service is said to lie in compensation. Average annual salaries for civil servants may exceed private-sector levels, but that comparison assumes long-term stable advancement and says nothing about pay at the entry gate. Reaching that gate, moreover, takes six months to a year of specialized exam preparation. What it costs before you even apply is heavy compared with private-sector job hunting.

That view alone, though, does not explain everything. In mid-career hiring exams, run separately from the graduate track, the number of examinees rose by 7,163, from 76,471 to 83,634[11], and those hired rose by 2,455, from 11,131 to 13,586[11]. The number of bodies running such exams grew from 1,103 to 1,201. As the graduate entrance narrows, the mid-career road is widening. How you get in may matter more than what you are paid.

The 2025 National Personnel Authority recommendation included a 3.62% monthly pay increase and 0.05-month bonus increase, but the focus was on starting salaries and younger employees — falling short of fundamental structural reform.

Post-Entry Collapse: Youth Attrition and Mental Health

The problem extends beyond recruitment. Young employees who do enter are leaving at accelerating rates.

Voluntary resignations among employees under 30 are rising. The specific counts — 1,564 in FY2013 against 4,244 in FY2022 — have been dropped: the ministry survey cited is the FY2021 edition, which covers a different year, and the FY2022 edition could not be located. A survey of 1,223 former employees aged 20–35 cited dissatisfaction with salary levels (68%) and anxiety about career development (61%) as top resignation reasons (per Yamanashi Research Institute investigative reporting).

Seniority-based HR systems, fixed 3–4 year rotation cycles, and career placements that rarely reflect individual preferences produce structural dissatisfaction: "Hard work goes unrewarded" and "I can't do the work I want to do."

The mental health burden is equally severe. In FY2024, 48,971 employees took sick leave or leave of absence of one month or longer for mental health reasons, representing 1.5% of the workforce — roughly 1.9 times the level of a decade ago.

Because local government operations follow a "general enumeration" principle — where any law or ordinance can add responsibilities indefinitely — workloads in welfare, disaster response, DX, and services for foreign residents continue to expand while staffing does not. Workplaces that "cannot train, cannot protect, and cannot meet expectations" are spreading, particularly in smaller municipalities.

Japan's Public Sector Ratio: The Lowest in the OECD

Underpinning these issues is Japan's remarkably low public sector employment ratio.

Japan's ratio of general government employees to total employment stands at 4.9%[13] — roughly one-quarter of the OECD average of 18.4% and the lowest among member nations. The gap with Nordic countries like Norway (30.3%) and Sweden (28.7%) is nearly sixfold.

Yet the perception that "there are too many civil servants" and "civil servants have it easy" persists in Japanese society. This disconnect between perception and reality blocks discussions about increasing staff and piles ever more burden on the already scarce workforce — a vicious cycle.

Salary Improvements Alone Won't Suffice

Raising starting salaries is a necessary but insufficient condition. The core issue lies in redesigning the work itself.

Under the constraints of the Local Public Service Act, local governments cannot raise wages as nimbly as the private sector. While 71.1% of private companies planned to raise new-hire wages in 2025, municipal salary structures require ordinance amendments to change. Moreover, the funding source is tax revenue — as population declines, the resource base itself shrinks.

Unless salary improvements are accompanied by redesigning the appeal, autonomy, and meaning of the work, the "enter then exit" structure will persist.

DX as Transformation, Not Mere Labor Saving

Leading examples of municipal DX demonstrate possibilities beyond simple labor reduction.

Tsukuba City deployed RPA starting in 2017, reducing task time by 79.2%[14] across five municipal tax division processes (424 hours → 88 hours). Kobe City introduced RPA for commuting allowance processing, projecting annual savings of 2,350 hours[15].

RPA adoption rates have reached 94% among prefectural governments and 100% among designated cities[16], but only 41% among other municipalities. The concentration of DX benefits in larger governments mirrors the gap in workforce recruitment capacity.

The critical point is redirecting freed resources toward person-to-person services and policy planning — not using DX merely as headcount reduction.

When Even Consolidation Destinations Fail

Workforce shortages extend far beyond civil servants.

By 2030, logistics capacity is projected to fall 34% short of demand, and bus drivers will face a 28% staffing shortfall[17]. In construction, workers aged 55 and above constitute 36.7% of the workforce, while those 29 and under account for only 11.7%.

The fundamental question is whether the premise of "consolidation as solution" still holds. The prescription of concentrating depopulated area services in core cities breaks down when those core cities themselves face workforce shortages. Across government, healthcare, logistics, and construction, the assumption that "concentrating in urban areas ensures sustainability" is collapsing.

The Public-Private Circulation Circuit

Signs of hope lie in talent circulation between government and the private sector.

The Regional Revitalization Entrepreneurs program recorded 871 participants in FY2024[18] (780 corporate dispatches + 91 side-job arrangements) — a record high. The program involved 421 local bodies and 390 companies, expanding channels for private sector skills to flow into local government.

In June 2025, side employment for local government employees was formally permitted under certain conditions. Yokohama City introduced university recommendation slots for technical hiring, and municipalities increasingly adopt SPI-based assessments and early selection timelines to lower entry barriers.

As Hajime Kinoshita has repeatedly emphasized, designing an environment where people can do "meaningful work within their community" — not just better pay — is the core of workforce retention. The Ogal Project in Shiwa Town, Iwate Prefecture, where individuals with both government and private sector experience led regional transformation, demonstrates a concrete model for public-private circulation.

Designing a Place People Want to Work

The disappearing local government workforce is the convergent outcome of four structural factors: demographic decline, compensation gaps, organizational rigidity, and an abnormally low public sector employment ratio. Raising salaries alone will not fix it. Changing exam formats alone or introducing DX alone will not suffice.

The question is whether municipalities can comprehensively design an environment where people think, "I want to do this work, in this place." Flexible recruitment systems, DX-driven workflow redesign, institutionalized public-private talent circulation, and the shift from seniority-based systems to career autonomy — executing these not as isolated remedies but as an integrated "workplace redesign" is what determines the sustainability of local government.

Population decline is irreversible. That makes it all the more urgent to decide what can be changed in the time remaining.

Inspiration for This Article

• Hajime Kinoshita's Threads post, "Local Workforce Is Disappearing" (April 2026)
• Local Workforce Is Disappearing: Structural Decline Behind Falling Civil Service Exam Ratios and Youth Resignations（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） by Hajime Kinoshita (April 21, 2026)

References

Recommended Reading

• 『地方消滅 東京一極集中が招く人口急減』(Regional Extinction)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Hiroya Masuda, ed., Chuko Shinsho, 2014) (Original: 『地方消滅 : 東京一極集中が招く人口急減』)
• 『「働き手不足1100万人」の衝撃 : 2040年の日本が直面する危機と"希望"』 (The Shock of 11 Million Missing Workers)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Seito Furuya & Recruit Works Institute, President Inc., 2024) (Original: 『「働き手不足1100万人」の衝撃 : 2040年の日本が直面する危機と"希望"』)
• 『10年で激変する!「公務員の未来」予想図』 (How Public Service Will Transform in 10 Years)（外部サイト、新しいタブで開きます） (Masashi Komurasaki, Gakuyo Shobo, 2018) (Original: 『10年で激変する!「公務員の未来」予想図』)

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