Since the COVID lockdowns started in March 2020, the public sector has ballooned by nearly 20%, while non-government jobs only saw a 5% increase in the same period.
According to a Statistics Canada report on the Canadian job market released on Friday, employment rose by 91,000 or 0.4% in December, and unemployment declined by 0.1% to 6.7%
Among those new jobs, the number of government jobs rose by 40,000 in December and 156,000 since the same time last year. It said the change in jobs was largely due to an increase in educational services, health care and social assistance.
According to the report, employment rose by 17,000 in the educational sector, the second consecutive monthly increase, and by 16,000 in health care and social assistance.
“Over the 12 months of 2024, growth in health care and social assistance, +130,000; +4.8% and educational services, +71,000; +4.7%, have together accounted for nearly half of employment growth across all industries,” the report said.
The same report stated that private sector jobs rose by 27,000 in December and 191,000 more Canadian jobs from the previous year.
Compared to February 2020, however, this marks a 19% increase in government jobs since the start of the pandemic and a 5% increase for the private sector.
“The growth in government bureaucracy is unsustainable, unaffordable and unfair for taxpayers,” Franco Terrazzano, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, told True North.
“All these extra government bureaucrats mean higher taxes for struggling taxpayers. We need politicians who are willing to stand up for taxpayers, shrink the bureaucracy and cut taxes,”
According to a Parliamentary Budget Officer report in November, the cost of the growing public sector has reached $69.5 billion annually for federal personnel in 2023-24. In 2016-17, just after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office, taxpayers paid $40.2 billion for the federal payroll.
Since Trudeau first took office taxpayers have funded a 72.9% increase to the government workforce.
“The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by 73% since 2016, but it’s a good bet most Canadians aren’t seeing anywhere close to 73% better services from the government,” he said.
According to data released by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat in July last year, the number of federal employees ballooned by 42% since 2016 under Trudeau.
A separate report from the CTF in June 2024 found that the Trudeau government approved 1,121,110 pay raises for federal workers since 2020. In 2023 alone, the feds granted 319,067 federal workers pay raises, though the amount given to each individual was not disclosed.
“The federal government added tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, rubberstamped hundreds of millions in bonuses and awarded more than one million pay raises and all taxpayers seem to get out of it is higher taxes and more debt,” Terrazzano said. “Canadians particularly need politicians in Ottawa to take air out of the ballooning bureaucracy.”
