Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, jobs in the federal public sector have seen threefold growth since he was first elected in 2015, with record growth being reported last year.
Additionally, more public servants changed positions, resigned or were investigated than in any other period under Trudeau.
The Public Service Commission of Canada’s annual report revealed that the federal public service grew to 274,218 employees by the end of the last fiscal year on March 31, 2023.
According to the report, there was an increase of 6.5% year-over-year and a cumulative growth of 40.4% more than at the end of the 2014-2015 fiscal year.
Figures from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat corroborate the report, revealing that certain departments and agencies not included in the tally also grew by 30% over the same period, hitting a record number of 357,247 additional employees.
The government hired 71,000 external employees throughout the 2022-2023 fiscal year, an increase of almost 10% from the previous year. The report also noted that 59.3% of external hires and internal promotions last year were done through non-advertised processes.
Since 2014-2015, the share of promotions and new hires that were conducted without advertised postings increased by 21.7%.
Another notable increase was the dramatic spike in personnel expenditures, up 39.9% since 2021-2022, as reported by the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Spending on professional and special services also increased by 14.7% over that same period.
“The obvious question from a citizen taxpayer point of view is, ‘We have 40 per cent more people in government, am I getting 40 per cent faster service?’ I don’t think most people feel that value for money,” Aaron Wudrick, director of domestic policy with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute told the Globe and Mail.
In the past fiscal year, almost 37% of federal public servants were moved to other positions, promoted, or appointed to acting positions, another record high since 2013-2014.
Additionally, the number of investigations launched by the commission into public servant employees over allegations of improper political activities or other irregularities tripled from 34 in 2021-2022 to 109 last year.
The bulk of those investigations were related to alleged errors, omissions or improper conduct regarding the external hiring process, up 66% from the previous year, with investigations into alleged fraud increasing by 40%.
“The pandemic and the ability to work remotely has created a huge surge in demand for public-sector work. I think that is a good thing, we want it to be highly competitive to work in the public sector,” said Wudrick. “But that only holds if the government doesn’t continue to just create jobs and inflate the size of the public sector for its own sake.”
Wudrick believes that surging demand for public servant employment is because it “has always offered a different value proposition in terms of work-life balance and job security and a pension.”
