FAQ
What is Bhutan's civil-service attrition rate?
In 2023 it spiked sharply: 5,202 civil servants resigned in a single year — an attrition rate of about 17.2%, or roughly one in six of the service, against a global norm of three to five percent. It has since moderated to around 6.4%, but the 2023 spike stripped out a layer of mid-career experience the service is still rebuilding. (The 5,202 figure is the calendar-year count; the RCSC's July–June fiscal-year report records a slightly lower ~4,822 — the gap is the reporting window, not a contradiction.)
A one-year loss of roughly one in six staff is workforce-restructuring territory, not normal turnover. What made 2023 acute was not the headline rate alone but who left: disproportionately mid-career professionals, the people who carry project context and institutional memory. Many followed the same path as the wider exodus — toward the private sector, or abroad.
The moderation to ~6.4% by 2025 matters: the present-tense claim “one in six are walking away” is true only of 2023. The full picture, with the basis note on the two reporting windows, is in Paradox #20.