About the Austrian public service:

The staff of authorities and subordinate agencies of the Republic of Austria are made up mainly of the big groups of „Beamte“ and „Vertragsbedienstete“. These two terms cannot be easily translated into English simply because both in the UK and in the USA you do not find equivalent employment relationships. This is even reflected in otherwise accurate specialized dictionaries.¹¹Dietl/Lorenz (in their Dictionary of Legal, Commercial and Political Terms II [German-English; Beck, München 1992] p 112 f) do not include the term „Vertragsbediensteter“; „Beamter“ they refer to as „civil servant (or official) appointed for life“; they go on as distinguishing the two terms of „established (or permanent) civil servant“ as the British term and „career civil servant“ as the American term respectively. Yet they translate „zum Beamten auf Lebenszeit ernannt warden“ as „to be appointed as a civil servant until retirement“ which does not take into account that in Austria, for instance, the relationship in between the state as the employer and the civil servant is ongoing even after retirement. The phrase „with tenure for life“ emphasizes even more so than the term of „Beamter“ on the far less than ideal public image of these employees. Also it does not point to the possiblities of the employer of ending such an employment in certain cases.