Statistics Canada has begun the process of slashing its workforce by about 850 positions and 12 per cent of its executive team.
The federal statistics agency entered its workforce adjustment period Monday and will be informing affected and surplus employees of their status in the next two weeks, Statistics Canada spokesperson Carter Mann said in an email.
“Statistics Canada remains focused on serving Canadians and adapting to future needs as we move through this period of change,” Mann said.
To reach those cuts, the agency has issued thousands of workforce adjustment notices, according to the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC).
In an email, PIPSC president Sean O’Reilly said the notices have been issued to 3,274 workers at Statistics Canada, including 940 of the union’s members.
“These are not abstract cuts on the government’s balance sheet — they are real jobs, real expertise and real services at risk,” O’Reilly said. “Once this capacity is gone, it cannot be quickly or cheaply replaced. It’s a dark time for the federal public service.”
O’Reilly called Statistics Canada the “cornerstone” of the public service. Data generated by Statistics Canada helps underpin evidence-based decision-making across government, business and communities, PIPSC said.
Meanwhile, Canada largest public sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), said in an email that 350 of its members at Statistics Canada received letters yesterday informing them their job would be affected by government cuts.
Workforce adjustment
Although the Treasury Board has not provided a breakdown of exactly where cuts will come,
workforce adjustment notices have started
to trickle out. Hundreds of public servants across Natural Resources Canada, the Public Service Commission of Canada, Crown Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada and the Department of Finance have already received notices.
Workforce adjustment is a process that ensures alternative employment opportunities will be made, where possible, for permanent workers who lose their position.
Through the process, public servants who receive workforce adjustment notices could have an opportunity to trade places with an employee who wants to leave (in what’s called alternation) to compete for a position.
The Liberal government has been scaling back the size of the public service over the last two years, and cuts are ramping up.
In Carney’s first budget, the government projected a decline of nearly 40,000 workers from a peak of 368,000 in 2023-2024, amounting to a reduction of around 10 per cent in the overall public service headcount.
The cuts are expected to equate to 16,000 full-time equivalents, a term that describes the workload of a full-time employees.
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 $1.5 billion in incentives.
More to come.
