Details emerge of Canadian public service job cuts, as thousands receive layoff notices
The Government of Canada has begun to notify federal public servants of planned job cuts, after the Carney administration announced in its first Budget last November that it intended to eliminate 16,000 jobs by 2029.
Data provided by unions shows that nearly 10,000 federal workers received notices last week that their jobs may be affected. This includes 5,400 employees from Statistics Canada, Shared Services Canada and Public Services and Procurement Canada.
Employees at Statistics Canada were told that 850 positions would be cut from the department over the next two years. According to an internal email seen by CBC, by 27 January the department will send a total of 3,274 “workforce adjustment notices” to employees whose services “may no longer be required”.
Workforce adjustment is the process through which the government makes alternative employment opportunities available, where possible, for permanent workers who lose their positions. As such, not everyone who receives a notice will lose their job, with some likely to be shuffled into different roles.
It is also understood that 12% of Statistics Canada’s 99 executive positions will be cut.
As of the end of March 2025, the department had 7,274 employees on its payroll.
The agency said in a statement that it “remains focused on serving Canadians and adapting to future needs as we move through this period of change”.
Read more: Canada Budget sets out plans to modernise government and create ‘leaner public service’
Three unions – the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the Government Services Union and the Professional Institute for the Public Service of Canada – reported that more than 1,200 of their members at Shared Services Canada received notices last week that their jobs may be cut.
Unions also reported that notices had been sent to 1,172 workers at Global Affairs Canada, 775 workers at Transport Canada, 598 workers at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, 895 workers at Health Canada, 700 workers at Public Services and Procurement Canada, and 534 workers at Employment and Social Development Canada.
Details of cuts at other departments are patchy but the Toronto Star reported that more than 18 departments have either notified staff of jobs cuts since December, or confirmed that they will be sending notices.
A spokesperson for Natural Resources Canada told the Star that 700 employees had been told they could be affected by a plan to eliminate 400 positions at the department by 2028-29.
Other departments so far reported to be moving ahead with cuts – based on information either from the departments themselves or unions – include Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; the Department of Finance; the Treasury Board Secretariat; the Public Service Commission; and Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada. The planned cuts at these departments are expected to shave thousands from the public service headcount.
Ambition to save C$60bn in government spending
The move to reduce the size of the public service aligns with the government’s ambition, as set out in the Budget, to drive C$60bn (US$43.4bn) in savings over the next five years. All federal departments and agencies are expected to cut their overall spending by 15%.
The Budget documents set out that savings would be achieved by “restructuring operations and consolidating internal services and rightsizing programs to realise efficiencies”, and by making “workforce adjustments and attrition to return the size of the public service to a more sustainable level”.
The Liberal government’s longer-term plan is to cut the number of federal public service jobs by about 40,000 from a peak of 368,000 positions in 2024, amounting to a reduction of around 10% in the overall public service headcount.
The government has expressed a desire to be “compassionate” in how cuts are administered.
The Budget documents said the government understands such processes can be difficult and is therefore committed to “minimising hardship for federal employees, while also protecting diversity in the public service workforce and ensuring a strong, younger generation of public servants”.
The government has said it intends to rely on attrition “to the greatest extent possible” by lowering age eligibility rules for retirement and offering what amounts to C$1.5bn (US$1bn) in incentives.
Late last year, the government said it was in the process of offering early retirement incentives to 70,000 employees in an attempt to ease the impact of the cuts.
“This is a transformational time for the public service to revisit how we work, how we can improve services to Canadians, and how we can build for the future,” the Budget documents said. “A leaner public service is a more empowered and productive public service.”
Government outsourcing raises ‘serious questions’, says union
Unions have been critical of the government’s approach.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) said last week that public servants are being forced into a “Hunger Games-style fight for jobs”.
It also said in a press release last week that it had demanded that the government explain why experienced public servants are facing layoffs while outsourcing spending reaches record highs.
Government records show Canada spent more than C$19bn (US$13.8bn) on external professional and special services in 2024-25, an increase of almost C$2bn (US$1.4bn) on the previous year and about C$8.5bn (US$6bn) higher than in 2020.
“We are hearing directly from members that consultants are still working alongside employees who received layoff notices [last week],” said PIPSC president Sean O’Reilly. “That raises serious questions.”
About Mia Hunt
Mia has been editor of globalgovernmentforum.com since 2019. She has 15 years’ experience as a journalist and editor and specialises in writing for civil and public servants worldwide, including covering sustainability policy and related issues. She has led the Global Government Women’s Network since it launched in 2023. Previously, she covered commercial property having been market reports and supplements editor at Property Week and deputy editor at Retail Destination. She graduated from Kingston University London with a first-class honours degree in journalism and was part of the team that produced The River newspaper, which won Publication of the Year at the Guardian Student Media Awards in 2010.
