PM’s department confirms job losses as restructure under way
Tuesday, 15 July 2025
More jobs are being scrapped in the prime minister’s department than originally proposed, with 18 roles axed amid a broad restructure.
The headcount for the 247-strong Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet is set to shrink to 229 jobs, a spokesperson for the department confirmed on Monday.
The initial proposal, reported by The Post in June, had planned for 12 job losses. To achieve this, 77 existing positions ‒ 57 occupied, 20 vacant ‒ were to be disestablished and 65 new roles created.
The churn in positions proposed at DPMC amounted to 30% of its workforce. The spokesperson did not confirm how many jobs were being disestablished and created to reach the new reduced total headcount, when detailing the final restructure plan on Monday.
“Of the roles being disestablished, about 20-or-so are currently vacant,” read a statement.
The restructure was to sharpen the department’s focus and to deliver “maximum impact”, the spokesperson said.
“It is also about creating a financially sustainable model at a time of fiscal restraint.”
Job cuts at the DPMC are the latest in rounds of redundancies in the public sector since 2024, as the coalition Government has sought to re-prioritise billions of dollars in spending.
Thousands of jobs have been slashed across the public sector. The Public Service Commission says that, as of December 2024, there were 2731 fewer full-time equivalent jobs in the public sector than the year prior.
The restructure was confirmed as affecting the department’s many and varied functions: the National Security Group, Risk and Systems Governance Group, the Prime Minister’s Advisory Group of top-shelf policy advisers, the delivery unit, the Cabinet Office, and Government House.
Being undone was a change made in December 2023 when the national security group, co-coordinating national security policy, was split from the “risk and systems governance group”, which focusing on strategic crisis management and governance across national security and hazard risks.
The two were being recombined into a “National Security and Resilience Group”.
“These changes will not see any erosion of our focus on the sector responsibilities DPMC holds,” said the spokesperson.
While there have been cost savings and tweaks to the organisational structure at DPMC in past years ‒ such as moving former prime minister Jacinda Ardern’s child poverty unit into the Ministry of Social Development, and creating a “delivery unit”‒ until now there has been no sizeable restructure.
The restructure comes more than a year after former diplomat Ben King was appointed secretary of DPMC.
DPMC is one of five central government agencies. It is tasked with advising and supporting the prime minister, Cabinet and the governor-general, and does cross-government work on risks and monitoring the government’s policy targets.