The House plenum on Thursday approved regulations that will factor in prior service in the public sector for the purposes of calculating employees’ annual leave.

The amended regulations passed by unanimous vote.

Up until now, annual leave for public-sector workers was staggered – the more years of service, the more leave they were entitled to.

Under the changes, the days of leave will now be calculated based on the years people have served in other public-sector posts other than the one they were appointed to and currently work at.

For example, someone might have worked in the public sector on an open-ended contract – in other words, they did not have full civil servant status.

From now on, if someone on an open-ended contract goes on to get appointed as a civil servant, their previous years of service as a contract worker would count toward their annual leave.

This includes people previously working in the police or fire department, the military, public education and organisations governed by public law – such as CyTA or the EAC.

It also applies to government temps paid on an hourly basis.

The changes, ensuring that no one working in the broader public sector will lose any leave days, apply retroactively as of January 2018.

According to official data, total employment in the broader public sector came to 78,388 in the first quarter of 2026.

The broader public sector is broken down as follows: the general government and publicly-owned enterprises.

In the general government, 73,236 persons are employed – most of them working for the central government, the rest in non-profits and local authorities. Publicly-owned enterprises employ 5,152.

Some 4,200 people work in the broader public sector on open-ended contracts.