RIGA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- Over the past three years, Latvia has reduced the size of its civil service workforce by 3,000 or seven percent, State Chancellery Director Janis Citskovskis told Parliament's Public Administration and Local Government Committee here on Wednesday.
Citskovskis noted that the public administration reform plan, which was adopted in 2017, envisaged reducing the number of civil servants from 42,000 by 6 percent. Since then, this number has been cut by 3,000, or roughly seven percent, said the official, noting that these are preliminary data for the period ending in November 2019.
Citskovskis said that the reduction has been achieved thanks to reforms and a "natural outflow" of employees from civil service.
The Ministries of the Interior, Justice and Welfare have achieved the best results, having reduced their staff by seven percent each, he said.
In 2017, the Latvian government adopted a reform plan intended to streamline public administration by laying off around six percent of its staff by 2020. The job cuts, however, did not apply to Latvian diplomats working abroad, the military and security services. Enditem
