Public service to grow despite projected job losses: experts

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The 5,000 jobs expected to be lost to attrition in the federal public service over the next four years are nothing compared to the number of staff the government will need to hire to meet its commitments, experts say.

The federal government announced with its budget unveiled earlier this month that its total workforce would decline as it seeks to save through attrition.

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The budget analyzed historical attrition rates and My dear The number of full-time equivalent jobs in the public service was anticipated to decline to around 363,000, from an estimate of 368,000 at the end of March. In 2023, the number of such jobs within the federal public service was 357,247, up from 335,957 in 2022.

Despite the expected loss of 5,000, parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux said there are several commitments and targets in the budget that “will result in additional hiring in the public service.”

Giroux noted that the budget promised improvements such as reducing wait times at Canada Revenue Agency call centers and addressing anti-Semitism and Islamophobia through departmental offices, all of which he said relies on hiring more people.

“I personally don’t see how they’re going to be able to reduce headcount in terms of value if they also want to do all these other things in the budget,” Giroux said, adding that he wouldn’t be surprised to see the government slow down hiring in the coming years. “That will be very difficult to reconcile.”

“I think what we will see is an increase in the number of public servants.”

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Between fiscal years 2015-16 and 2021-22, about 4.5 percent of full-time federal public service employees left the government, with departure fees between 3.6 and 5.3 percent.

In 2022, the size of the federal public service was 335,957, and there were about 15,118 (4.5 percent) employee departures.

“A reduction of 5,000 over the next four years, that is, 1,250 per year, does not seem like much in comparison,” Sahir Khan, executive vice-president of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa, said in an email. “Even if the reduction is net of projected departures, it will still be relatively small compared to the size of the population.”

Aaron Wudrick, director of the domestic policy program at the independent think tank The Macdonald-Laurier Institute, said the estimated loss of public servants “is not even an explicit promise” but rather an observation based on past trends.

“Actually, I wouldn’t even consider this a concrete commitment,” Wudrick said, noting that he “fully expects” the government to continue growing. “They haven’t explained how they are going to get there. “They have not implemented a hiring freeze.”

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Wudrick said the size of the public service has “increased substantially” under the current government, adding that “if it’s going to grow, it should probably also be better” in terms of the quality of public services.

“I’m not sure this government has achieved that,” he said.

Treasury Board Chair Anita Anand said in an interview that the government needed to hire civil servants to help with its emergency response and service delivery during the pandemic and is now in a “post-pandemic period” in which it is working with departments and agencies to find savings. .

When asked how many civil servants are expected to be hired in the coming years, Anand said it “largely depends” on the area the government is looking at.

“For example, in the cyber area, we see the need for more public servants with specific experience in the innovation economy, in AI,” Anand said. “I want to make it clear that ministers do not hire public service employees, that those decisions are made by deputy directors.”

“I will speak to all ministers, departments and agencies, not just a select few,” Anand said, adding that the government is always looking for opportunities to train and “scale up” through the existing workforce.

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A budget item that generated concern among federal unions such as the Canadian Association of Professional Employees and the Public Service Alliance of CanadaGiroux said he believed the government shared its estimate of how many public servants would be lost to attrition “in response to critics who say they only think about increasing public service.”

Giroux said government departmental plans typically anticipate a decrease in the number of employees in the coming years, although when those plans become reality, there is usually an increase in that number.

A analysis by the PBO office of the government’s Departmental Plans 2024-25, found that the number of full-time equivalents (FTE) is expected to have reached 439,000 in 2023-24, almost 20,000 more compared to last year’s plans .

The report found that the Canada Revenue Agency, Employment and Social Development Canada and Public Service and Procurement Canada accounted for half of the staff increase.

“Based on the last three years of Departmental Plans, a pattern has emerged in which the projected profile of FTEs (peaking and then declining) is revised upwards over the planning horizon in (departmental plans) later,” the report says, noting that plans for 2023-24 showed numbers would peak in 2022-23 and then begin to decline, although the latest plans show numbers would peak in 2023-24 before to decrease.

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