{"id":598925,"date":"2026-08-28T19:14:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598925\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T19:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T19:14:34","slug":"almost-3-of-the-n-w-t-govts-workforce-has-applied-to-take-early-retirement-incentive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/598925\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost 3% of the N.W.T. gov’t’s workforce has applied to take early retirement incentive"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Estimated 3 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations can occur. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve the results.<\/p>\n

Almost three per cent of employees working for the government of the Northwest Territories have applied for early retirement. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of an initiative implemented by the federal government in March.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before the cutoff date in July, 175 public service employees with the N.W.T. government had applied for early retirement, the N.W.T\u2019s finance department wrote in an email to the CBC. Of those, it’s expected that 167 will be approved, the department said.<\/p>\n

The Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority had the highest number of applicants at 35, with the Department of Environment and Climate Change and the Department of Finance falling slightly below, with 27 and 18 applicants respectively. <\/p>\n

Employees of the Northwest Territories are under the same federal Public Service Pension Plan as those working for Ottawa. So, when it came to the early retirement incentive (ERI) for the N.W.T, the territorial government didn\u2019t seek an exclusion from the federal program. <\/p>\n

In the 2025 budget, Prime Minister Mark Carney\u2019s government pledged to cut the public\u00a0service\u00a0by 4.5 per cent, or 16,000 jobs, within three years<\/a>. Some departments and agencies began their workforce adjustment process before the retirement incentive received royal assent. <\/p>\n

The incentive is voluntary and offered only on a temporary basis, according to the government of the Northwest Territories.<\/p>\n

Eligible applicants must be at least 50 or 55 years old or older, have had at least two years of pensionable service and worked in the government for at least 10 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The percentage of applicants in the federal government is similar to rates seen in the N.W.T. <\/p>\n

\"ASahir Khan is executive vice president at the Institute of Fiscal Studies and Democracy at the University of Ottawa. He says with early retirement incentives comes a risk of losing “institutional memory.” (CBC)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time since the mid to late 90s that Ottawa has used an early retirement incentive, said Sahir Khan, the vice-president of the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most humane ways to reduce your workforce,” Khan said. <\/p>\n

For those choosing the ERI who are only a few years away from retirement, it’s a good way to retire without penalties, Khan said. <\/p>\n

For those that still want to work after taking early retirement, the benefits really lie with the number of job opportunities available in the private market, he said. <\/p>\n

But these incentives also mean losing people with the most experience in the workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the federal government pumping money into the N.W.T. for new infrastructure projects<\/a> and defence, a loss of “institutional memory,\u201d can be a major drawback.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe agenda for the North [is] trying to do more things, more complicated things and you risk losing the very people who have the experience on how to do it,\u201d Khan said.<\/p>\n

The N.W.T. Department of Finance declined an interview with CBC, saying the program is a federal incentive and they can’t speak to it. <\/p>\n

The N.W.T.’s latest public service report from the Department of Finance says a total of 6,620 people worked for the territorial government last year, with those age 50 years or older making up 34.7 per cent of the workforce.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to the N.W.T.’s Department of Finance, it\u2019s anticipated that 140 employees and 27 senior manager ERI applications will be approved.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598926,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[114,268,85,46,266,267],"class_list":["post-598925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-personal-finance","tag-business","tag-finance","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-personal-finance","tag-personalfinance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=598925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598925\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}