ABSTRACT
The broad objective of government employment and wage policy is to achieve a workforce of the right size and with the skills, motivation, and adequate compensation needed for responsive and efficient administration. Government employment as a percentage of population increased steadily during the previous two centuries and especially in the second half of the 20th century, reaching 7.1 percent of the population in the mid-1990s. When the government is understaffed, getting to the right size of employment requires active recruitment combined with better terms of employment. A special approach to the "right size" of government employment is the Japanese way of handling government employment, which Anne-Marie Leroy called the "bonsai" approach. By and large, government employees tend to have a stronger public service ethos, either at entry or as an adaptation to their public mission, and are thus particularly motivated by non-monetary factors.
