OTTAWA — The federal public service has shed more than 23,000 staffers over the last two years, says Canada’s parliamentary spending watchdog.
A new online tool released by the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates there were 344,970 federal employees in the second quarter of this year, down 6.5 per cent from two years ago.
The departments and agencies that gained the most staff over the last two years were National Defence, the Communications Security Establishment, Elections Canada, Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada and the Canadian Space Agency.
The departments and agencies that lost the most employees were the Canada Revenue Agency, Employment and Social Development Canada, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada.
Parliamentary budget officer Annette Ryan said in a news release that her office created the tool to help parliamentarians and Canadians hold the government to account on its Budget 2025 commitment to reduce the size of the federal public service by 10 per cent by 2028-29.
“Parliamentarians need reliable and readily available information in order to review changes in government employment levels in order to question ministers about what that means for public services to Canadians,” said Ryan. “This tool provides them with objective, timely data that they can use to support their work.”
The Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer found that 9,809 of the workers lost were term employees. About 7,880 were permanent employees, while 3,203 were students and 2,889 were casual employees.
The federal government launched an early retirement program as part of its efforts to cut the number of public servants.
The government received 10,006 applications and, as of this month, more than 9,400 were found to have met the criteria.
The latest possible retirement date under the early retirement program is Jan. 20, 2027.
Martin Potvin, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, said in an email that there are no plans to open a second early retirement application window.
Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press
