This article investigates the extent to which the public social services sector, and particularly the areas of education and healthcare, could help to mitigate inequality and improve employment conditions in the Brazilian service sector. Drawing on the Continuous National Household Sample Surveys between 2012 and 2023, we explore descriptive statistics for jobs, the wage structure and employee profiles in this sector and conduct a counterfactual simulation to analyse how wage disparities in the education and healthcare sectors would be affected if the wage distribution in the public sector were the norm. The results indicate that public sector jobs are superior in respect of employment conditions, the inclusion of women and non-white people and the wage distribution profile. Lastly, the small share of total service sector employment accounted for by public education and health services represents an underexploited opportunity in the country.