Public service employment has grown by 31 per cent

[daftandbarmy]

There's a ton of straw on this camel's back....

Public service employment has grown by 31 per cent​

Now that the government does a lot more than it did before Trudeau took over, the size of the bureaucracy has increased in lockstep.

Federal statistics on the size of the public service show that the number of people on the government's payroll has climbed considerably in seven years.

In 2015, there were 257,034 federal workers — a figure that includes people working in what the government calls "core public administration" and "separate agencies."

Separate agencies include the Canada Revenue Service, Parks Canada, the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and more than a dozen others.

In 2022, there were 335,957 federal public servants — an increase of 30.7 per cent compared to seven years before.

Canada's population, meanwhile, grew by about 8.5 per cent in the same time period.

That means the federal public service's employment growth rate is three times greater than the population growth rate.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/cost-to-run-federal-government-increase-151b-a-year-1.6797486

 

[Ostrozac]

The two key takeaways I see are that the Phoenix pay debacle clearly didn’t piss off as many people as I expected, or maybe more accurately didn’t piss them off enough to quit, and that the Public Service still knows how to attract, recruit and retain Canadians — which the CAF struggles with.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The two key takeaways I see are that the Phoenix pay debacle clearly didn’t piss off as many people as I expected, or maybe more accurately didn’t piss them off enough to quit, and that the Public Service still knows how to attract, recruit and retain Canadians — which the CAF struggles with.

Pay is decent, benefits are great. I am very thankfully to have been part of the Public Service and it is still helping me through my pension to cover my daughters diabetic stuff. Even though she do great in any business she wants to get into, I advise her to go Federal PS as they will support her her future challenges and her diabetic health needs, which without insurance run $10-15,000 a year.

I worked in a great group, my boss when I went into an office job told me: "Spend the money like it's coming out of your own pocket and think of everything you hate about government and don't do it" Great and simple advice.

 

[CBH99]

Great and simple advice indeed!

Sounds like a pretty down to Earth guy.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Nice to be retired and not paying income taxes on the extra income no longer needed. For the rest of the people who get to pay for all this: you poor bastards.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Nice to be retired and not paying income taxes on the extra income no longer needed. For the rest of the people who get to pay for all this: you poor bastards.

 

[Eaglelord17]

The two key takeaways I see are that the Phoenix pay debacle clearly didn’t piss off as many people as I expected, or maybe more accurately didn’t piss them off enough to quit, and that the Public Service still knows how to attract, recruit and retain Canadians — which the CAF struggles with.

Considering many in the PS would struggle to make anywhere near what they make there in the private sector (both pay and benefit wise), its not hard to see why they are able to retain people.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Nice to be retired and not paying income taxes on the extra income no longer needed. For the rest of the people who get to pay for all this: you poor bastards.

oops

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Great and simple advice indeed!

Sounds like a pretty down to Earth guy.

Woman actually and one of the first female officers in the CCG fleet, she went on to be the Vancouver Harbourmaster and back again as the Regional Director of Pacific Marine Safety. Her one quirk was slicing and dicing your letters to death, when she proof read them.

 

[Haggis]

None of those 30.7% new hires showed up in my agency, or particularly my workplace. Has anyone seen a breakdown of how many went where?

 

[Halifax Tar]

None of those 30.7% new hires showed up in my agency, or particularly my workplace. Has anyone seen a breakdown of how many went where?

Ottawa - Toronto - Montreal

 

[Remius]

None of those 30.7% new hires showed up in my agency, or particularly my workplace. Has anyone seen a breakdown of how many went where?

Can provide this but it won’t say where exactly.

Population of the federal public service by department or agency - Canada.ca

This data table shows the number of employees for each government department, each separate agency (excluding Crown Corporations), and the number of ministers' exempt staff, for each year from 2005 to the present.

www.canada.ca

 

[Navy_Pete]

Can provide this but it won’t say where exactly.

Population of the federal public service by department or agency - Canada.ca

This data table shows the number of employees for each government department, each separate agency (excluding Crown Corporations), and the number of ministers' exempt staff, for each year from 2005 to the present.

www.canada.ca

CRA and PSPC seem to be the bigger increases, with some growth at RCMP, and CSEC, with most others are stable or slight increases. No idea how they keep 1100 people busy at PCO though.

But raw numbers doesn't mean much of anything if they are in BGH or oversight positions, while worker bee jobs are empty. There are a lot of people doing 'oversight' and 'dashboard' type work where I'm at, when we can't keep up with basic support because more work then people.

 

[Remius]

CRA and PSPC seem to be the bigger increases, with some growth at RCMP, and CSEC, with most others are stable or slight increases. No idea how they keep 1100 people busy at PCO though.

But raw numbers doesn't mean much of anything if they are in BGH or oversight positions, while worker bee jobs are empty. There are a lot of people doing 'oversight' and 'dashboard' type work where I'm at, when we can't keep up with basic support because more work then people.

CRA, PSPC and go look at ESDC. Major numbers there. But how much of that is term workers hired at CRA? Not sure.

CSE growing makes sense. RCMP is about 2k. But that may be a result of converting some CMs to PSEs. Global affairs about 2k as well.

 

[Navy_Pete]

CRA, PSPC and go look at ESDC. Major numbers there. But how much of that is term workers hired at CRA? Not sure.

CSE growing makes sense. RCMP is about 2k. But that may be a result of converting some CMs to PSEs. Global affairs about 2k as well.

And similarly there is a surge at public health, which also makes sense.

I'm generally somewhat suspicious of these numbers, as I know we have a lot of positions effectively being done by contractors. Temp work makes sense, but for long term core work, costs way and is more work, as someone has to manage the contract and invoices. That is hidden under types of money then SWE so is hard to figure out.

With how many empty spots on the org chart there is in reality though, no idea where the 'growth' is happening, but definitely not in our shop. We had to fight to get existing positions filled, as the associated SWE for them had been cut, so may have been the case for other positions as well. DRAP sucked, as they didn't reduce the amount of work or the LOE for different tasks.

 

[Remius]

And similarly there is a surge at public health, which also makes sense.

I'm generally somewhat suspicious of these numbers, as I know we have a lot of positions effectively being done by contractors. Temp work makes sense, but for long term core work, costs way and is more work, as someone has to manage the contract and invoices. That is hidden under types of money then SWE so is hard to figure out.

With how many empty spots on the org chart there is in reality though, no idea where the 'growth' is happening, but definitely not in our shop. We had to fight to get existing positions filled, as the associated SWE for them had been cut, so may have been the case for other positions as well. DRAP sucked, as they didn't reduce the amount of work or the LOE for different tasks.

Contractors would not be in those numbers. Terms and casuals maybe. But those are not contractors.

DRAP sucked indeed and I know some areas that have yet to recover from that.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The CPC Workforce Adjustment was also badly done, and within 5-6 years most of the frontline positions had to be refilled as the work savings from the regulation changes did not materialize. We tried telling them that a enforcement approach was way more labour intensive than pre-construction prescription through regulation.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Contractors would not be in those numbers. Terms and casuals maybe. But those are not contractors.

DRAP sucked indeed and I know some areas that have yet to recover from that.

For sure, I guess I was just curious how many of those numbers aren't 'new' employees, but basically contractors transitioning to full time.

I have a few contractors, and we pay about twice the salary for their time, with some restrictions on what they can do, but it's a different colour of bean so I guess that's okay. Not that it goes into their pockets, but overall still costs more than if they were FTEs.

Although with the arbitrary additional restrictions TBS put in on remote work outside geolocation, where people are supposed to pay travel to geolocation, it is sometimes the only option to actually find someone qualified to do the job if it's feasible to do remotely. We tried setting up coastal LCMM 'detachments' but that basically torpedo'd it. And then with additional restrictions against double dipping, that actually also provided a disincentive, so at least as contractors we can tap into the decades of experience we would lose otherwise.

 

[Good2Golf]

CRA and PSPC seem to be the bigger increases, with some growth at RCMP, and CSEC, with most others are stable or slight increases. No idea how they keep 1100 people busy at PCO though.

Maybe some of the large CRA surge will work on recovering some of that $15B handed out to ineligible CERB claimants?

 

[Halifax Tar]

We should offer them the same deal the CAF got.