{"id":22694,"date":"2025-07-25T09:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T09:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22694\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T09:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T09:10:10","slug":"number-of-federal-public-service-jobs-could-drop-by-almost-60000-report-predicts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/22694\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of federal public service jobs could drop by almost 60,000, report predicts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne has sent letters to multiple ministers asking them to cut program spending by 15 per cent come 2028-29.PATRICK DOYLE\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives says the federal public service could shed almost 60,000 jobs over the next four years as Ottawa looks to cut costs.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne sent letters to multiple ministers asking them to cut program spending at their departments by 7.5 per cent next spring, 10 per cent the year after and 15 per cent in 2028-29.<\/p>\n

The report, written by senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives David Macdonald, says the federal public service could lose up to 57,000 employees by 2028.<\/p>\n

The report predicts that tens of thousands of jobs will be cut at the Canada Revenue Agency, Employment and Social Development and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada \u2013 three federal bodies that already have seen a drop in employees in recent months.<\/p>\n

The report says the cities of Ottawa and Gatineau will likely \u201cbear the brunt\u201d of the cuts because almost half of the job losses will be in the National Capital Region.<\/p>\n

The report predicts service impacts will be felt across the country and the cuts will mean longer wait times, more errors and \u201cfewer people to fix those errors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaving department budgets won\u2019t be enough to rein in federal spending<\/a><\/p>\n

The report says the government is asking departments to find savings to help cover major military spending increases and tax cuts. It says the Department of Defence, the RCMP, the Canada Border Services Agency, the Supreme Court and the Parliamentary Budget Office are \u201cprotected departments\u201d and need to plan for a smaller two per cent cut.<\/p>\n

The Canadian Press has reached out to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat for confirmation of those departments\u2019 protected status but has not yet received a response.<\/p>\n

The report suggests ministers have some flexibility in choosing where the cuts will land.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor instance, a department may propose to cut fewer than 15 per cent of their staff, but that means other budget items will have to be cut by more than 15 per cent to make up the difference,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n

In an earlier report, Macdonald said there could also be cuts to things like transfers to First Nations governments, supports for veterans and newcomers, international aid and research.<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Mark Carney<\/a> campaigned in the spring election on a promise to \u201ccap\u201d but not cut public service employment. He also promised to launch a \u201ccomprehensive review\u201d of government spending to increase productivity.<\/p>\n

In an email, Macdonald said Carney\u2019s campaign promise not to cut the public service \u201cnever made sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Federal public service job cuts fall heavily on young workers<\/a><\/p>\n

He said operational expenditures are already \u201ccapped\u201d at about $130-billion a year and that \u201cit always had to be cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the campaign, they were targeting staffing [and] other operational spending,\u201d Macdonald said in the email. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut this expanded substantially to include departmental transfers in July, probably to pay for the massive new defence spending that happened just weeks after the election [and weren\u2019t in the platform or certainly not that quickly].\u201d<\/p>\n

Macdonald said the government likely will offer buyouts to older employees to encourage more retirements. He also said cuts will likely involve \u201cthe end of all term and casual employment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are going to tend to be younger workers who aren\u2019t yet indeterminate,\u201d he said. \u201cThen it will be indeterminates that will go through workforce adjustment that may end in layoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nathan Prier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, said the union is very concerned by what it calls the \u201cbroken promise\u201d not to cut the federal public service.<\/p>\n

He said departments are now being told to find savings that could amount to a \u201cdrastic reduction in the quality of public services that Canadians rely on …\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadians were hoping with their choice last election that as a country we\u2019d stand up to threats from [U.S. President Donald Trump], make strategic investments in our economy and diversify our trading partners, and to do that we need a strong federal public service,\u201d Prier said.<\/p>\n

The Carney government\u2019s cuts follow previous cuts introduced in Budget 2023 under the \u201crefocusing government spending\u201d initiative. The report said those cuts are already affecting staffing levels and that their \u201csavings\u201d will hit their peak impact in 2026-27.<\/p>\n

The federal public service shrunk by almost 10,000 people last year, with the number of public servants employed by the federal government falling from 367,772 to 357,965.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Finance Minister Fran\u00e7ois-Philippe Champagne has sent letters to multiple ministers asking them to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21440,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,43,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,41,39,42,40,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-22694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-headlines","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}