I'd want to parse the data more closely - how many new jobs were temporary, created to help with government response to COVID (at fed, prov and muni levels) and have been ramping down?
This article breaks it down a bit more I think. Sadly governments, especially left wing governments like the Liberal-NDP Bromance, seldom cut jobs:
Pandemic hiring boom: Federal government added nearly 20,000 workers in a single year
Nearly half the job gains were accounted for by just three departments and agencies on the frontlines of the war against the novel coronavirus.
Clearly the number of jobs at Statistics Canada and Elections Canada will show drops in coming surveys. And the need for people to develop and administer emergency programs also appears diminished.
However, Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey, which samples a slightly larger universe of federal government employees — it includes the military, for instance — suggests the hiring has continued unabated. The latest monthly snapshot estimates there were 457,400 federal government workers in February, compared to about 410,000 in the same month a year earlier. The same data shows a year over year drop of five per cent for the capital region.
If most of the additions become permanent, it will have a dramatic impact on the government’s balance sheet because accountants must record estimates for the cost of the future benefits earned by each employee during the year.
According to the public accounts, the government added $19.2 billion worth of future benefits earned by employees last year. Compared to the total spending
increase of $270 billion in fiscal 2021 — it ended March 31 — that may not seem like much, but it adds up.
Nearly half the job gains were accounted for by just three departments and agencies on the frontlines of the war against the novel coronavirus.
ottawacitizen.com
nationalpost.com
