The Australian public service's (APS) recruitment problem is set to get worse with almost half of its workforce to reach retirement age over the next decade.

The annual State of the Service report shows the public service workforce grew by 1.7 per cent last financial year to 164,596.

But less than a third of those jobs were permanent positions.

Women account for almost 60 per cent of the workforce but only 37 per cent of the senior executive service (SES).

The proportion of employees with a disability was stable at 3.1 per cent while the proportion of Indigenous people remained unchanged at 2.2 per cent.

The APS is already facing recruitment problems and that is set to get worse.

More than 43 per cent of permanent will become eligible for retirement in the next 10 years.

APS commissioner Stephen Sedgwick says the service is facing a recruitment time bomb.

"That puts an obligation on us to plan for that generational change and to make sure we identify and nurture the future leaders of the public service," he said.

But only 21 per cent of agencies have a workforce plan, while 41 per cent are developing a strategy to deal with staff changes.

"Organisational capabilities is about getting the right combinations of people and systems and cultures within organisations to make sure people can do their job well and in a timely fashion," said Mr Sedgwick.

"We've found in recent times there's been cases where agencies have found it difficult to put together the right combinations of capabilities to get things done in a timely fashion.

"So we're hoping we get more systematic approaches to workforce planning and to learning and development within organisations so we can do that better in the future."

Nearly 80 per cent of employees reported enjoying their current job while 82 per cent felt motivated to do their best work.

But 28 per cent said they intend to leave their agency in the next two years, with half planning to move to another APS agency. That is up from 21 per cent in the previous year.

Last financial year the Ethics Advisory Service received more than 1,000 enquiries.

Less than four in every 1,000 employees were found to have breached the APS Code of Conduct.

Social networking platforms including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are becoming popular tools among agencies.

"Sixty-two per cent of APS agencies use social networking tools to engage with their external stakeholders," said Mr Sedgwick.

"Of those employees who have been involved in those exercises, overwhelmingly, 80 per cent of them say that having access to those tools helps them to do their job better."