In mid-March there were a total of 63,129 civil servants in the Croatian state administration services, according to statistics kept by the public administration ministry.

The trade union of employees in the state and local administration services made public the figures on Friday after being prompted by media and political interpretations about the number of civil servants. It asked the ministry to make the statistics available.

Of those 63,129 public servants, 51,276 are employees in the state administration departments, agencies and councils, 8,169 are employed with the judicial authorities, and 2,285 are on the payroll of the defence sector.

The government's offices have 496 civil servants, the national parliament 244 and the Office of the President of the Republic 149.