The impact of employee level and work stress on mental health and GP service use: an analysis of a sample of Australian government employees

Table 1 Descriptions of government employee categories

Position level in Australian Public Service (APS)	Description of positions covered by these levels	Employee category	Number, % of participants		% female	Mean years of education
APS Level 1 APS Level 2 APS Level 3 APS Level 4	Work is always supervised; can include: drafting correspondence, organising travel, filing, other routine clerical work.	Junior	123	15.26	74.80	13.46
APS Level 5 APS Level 6	Work includes: supervising junior staff, liaising with external bodies, supporting project managers, drafting complex correspondence and policy papers, undertaking research.	Inter-mediate	215	26.67	51.63	14.87
APS Level 7	Work includes: managing government programs and contracts, supervising staff, preparing high level policy advice, developing and implementing government policy	Senior 1	220	27.30	37.73	15.69
APS Level 8	Work includes: managing a Section of staff, providing policy, financial, or administrative advice to government, representing department at external meetings.	Senior 2	193	23.95	33.16	16.02
Senior Executive Service	Responsible for: overall management of large numbers of staff; achieving government objectives through development and implementation of innovative and financially sound policy.	Executive	55	6.82	30.91	16.58
Total			806	100.0
Mean measure					45.53	15.27

ISSN: 1471-2458