exams. In addition, the law also instituted a special program for recruiting one person from each household whose members were all unemployed. These exceptional recruitment provisions have thus put in place a recruitment process that is easier to manage than competitive recruitment, but targets a restricted group of candidates and imposes less stringent eligibility requirements.

**Another exceptional provision allowed for the regularization of contract and temporary workers.** This provision, stipulated by Decree 2011-483 of May 7, 2011, has led to the transitioning of large numbers of contract and temporary workers into permanent public employment. The decree has so far been extended three times, with the latest extension set by Decree 2014-2441 of July 3, 2014.

**These exemptions have led to a significant increase in recruitment** (Table 1). The total number of recruits more than doubled between 2010 and 2011, and remained at this high level from 2011 to 2013. The regularization of contract and temporary workers constituted between 25 percent (2011) and 35 percent (2013) of total recruitment. The ministries that were most active in regularizations between 2011 and 2013 are also among the largest in terms of workforce, namely the Ministry of Agriculture (10,921 regularizations), Health (6,988), Interior (5,056), and Higher Education (3,748). These ministries represent 75 percent of all regularizations. Direct recruitment was significant in 2013, contributing to 16 percent of total recruitments. The largest employers of direct recruits were the Ministries of Education (962 direct recruits), Health (818), and Agriculture (608), representing 39 percent of total direct recruitments. However, despite the significant contribution of regularizations and direct recruitment, competitive recruitment also nearly doubled and remains the main recruiting method.

**Table 1: Recruitment and Regularization in the Public Sector since the Revolution**

||**Recruitment**<br>**Competitive**|**Direct**|**Regularizat**<br>**Worker **|**ion **<br>**Contract**|**Temporary**|**Total**|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|2010|18,115|-|-|-|-|18,115|
|2011|30,580|1|265|4,968|2,704|38,518|
|2012|37,132|2|8,422|2,151|2,252|49,959|
|2013|21,950|6,149|4,051|4,316|1,484|37,950|

Source: CGFP (2014)

**Based on our interviews with the CGFP and the MoI, it appears that the increase in recruitment was accompanied by a deterioration in the quality of competencies recruited** , a phenomenon that unfortunately cannot be illustrated with the data available to us. Regularizations and direct recruitment appear to have led to a decrease in the supervision rate and an over-representation of workers in the workforce. For example, 80 percent of the new employees allocated to the MoI through direct recruitment were workers. At the same time, restrictions on competitive recruitment<sup>8</sup> hinder the MoI from recruiting the technicians and engineers it requires to fulfill its functions. It is likely that the recent surge in recruitment has led to an inefficient composition of civil service staff.

> 8 The MoI has not been authorized to organize competitive exams for technicians for the last two years.

9