Kate Forbes has refused to put a figure on public sector job losses amid fears it could be as high as 30,000.
The SNP Cabinet Secretary for Finance also claimed it was “unlikely” 14,000 posts would be axed in the NHS as a result of her policies.
Central to Forbes’ spending review last week was freezing the overall public sector pay bill at 2022/23 levels.
The Government believes this can be achieved by reducing the public sector headcount to pre-pandemic levels - which reportedly could see 30,000 jobs go.
Asked at a Holyrood committee about this figure - and whether around half of that number could be in the health service - Forbes said: "I think it's unlikely that you would see that in the NHS.
"And that's why I've intentionally set out quite a flexible approach, where we know that there are some parts of the public sector that have grown and probably will need to grow, to an extent, further.
“There will be other parts of the public sector which no longer need to maintain this sort of COVID expansion of [the] workforce.”
The Finance Secretary was also asked about claims the Government faced a £3.5bn funding black hole over the next few years.
“There is no black hole in public finances,” she said.
“I don't know how else to explain the absolute basics of Scottish government budgets, which are our resource spending reviews, which I must balance. I can only spend, to the penny, what I am predicted or forecast to either raise or receive.”
Asked again by Tory MSP Douglas Lumsden about the 30,000 figure, she replied: “I've not put a figure on it. That figure is your figure, or other people's figure. But what I've suggested is that we need to get back to pre-COVID levels.”
“What I've been at pains not to do is to a) set an arbitrary target on figures, although it's dominated the press, and secondly, dictate to specific public bodies what they need to do.”
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