Federal public service cut by nearly 10,000 jobs, new data shows
The size of the federal public service shrank by nearly 10,000 jobs between the 2024 and 2025 fiscal years, marking the first time the civil service population hasn’t grown since 2015, according to newly published data by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.
The drop in 9,807 jobs marks a 2.7 per cent dip in the number of civil servants, with cuts nearly doubling the 5,000 projected to come over four years, as outlined in last year’s budget. The decrease brings the size of the population to approximately where it was by March 2023, when it employed 357,427 people.
The data, last updated on May 16, says the federal government employed 357,965 people at departments and agencies at the end of the 2024 fiscal year, compared to 367,772 the year prior.
About 68 per cent of the 9,807 jobs lost were at the Canada Revenue Agency, which reported 6,656 fewer employees between 2024 and 2025. Etienne Biram, a CRA media spokesperson, said the agency’s budget has been impacted by the end of pandemic-era program funding, “which has required the CRA to re-examine the size of its workforce,” resulting in up to 280 employees leaving the agency.
The CRA stopped converting term employees to permanent in April 2024 as a measure “to ensure we continue to operate efficiently while adapting to our financial realities,” Biram said by email.
Additionally, some term contracts ended early due to financial constraints, he said. On Jan. 29, CRA Commissioner Bob Hamilton announced the early end of term contracts for 312 employees.
“For the vast majority of our term employees that have ceased working at the CRA in the last fiscal year, it has been as a result of their terms ending and not be renewed, which is a standard practice,” Biram said.
Immigration, Refugee, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) was next in line, reporting 1,944 fewer personnel, which represents just under 20 per cent of the overall reduction. Earlier this year, the IRCC announced plans to cut 3,300 jobs over three years.
An IRCC spokesperson said 80 per cent of the staffing reduction would come through its temporary workforce, with the remaining 20 per cent affecting permanent employees via the workforce adjustment process. The IRCC did not provide a breakdown as it related to the cuts tied to the last fiscal year.
“IRCC aligns its funding with the targets in the Immigration Levels Plan, including adjusting staffing levels and processing capacity accordingly,” spokesperson Isabelle Dubois said in an emailed statement. “Resources are prioritized based on operational needs, with staff redeployed to high-need areas to ensure the continued delivery of essential services, support family reunification, and advance Canada’s economic objectives.”
Dubois said when an employee’s job falls under a “workforce adjustment” where their work is no longer required, indeterminate employees are offered “a variety of options” to transition to another public service job, and can be offered financial incentives for those transitioning out of the public service.
The Hill Times asked the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat if these job losses were for permanent, temporary, or term positions, or based on attrition.
Martin Potvin, a media spokesperson for the Treasury Board, said in a statement that the government is “committed to responsibly managing the size and composition of the public service, which can shift over time to align with changing priorities.”
The department is now led by new Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali (Brampton-Chinguacousy Park, Ont.). Potvin said officials at the department level are responsible for adjusting their workforce based on their needs. He noted staffing levels increased in some departments during the COVID-19 pandemic to support emergency response and recovery programs.
“As those needs have declined, staffing levels have been adjusted accordingly.”
Michael Wernick, a former clerk of Privy Council, cautioned that the numbers only show “a snapshot in time,” and are likely a result of the targets laid out in the 2024 budget.
“The way targets are implemented is at the level of individual organizations,” said Wernick, who is the current Jarislowsky Chair in Public Sector Management at the University of Ottawa. “They flow through to work units and then to middle managers.”
Of those employed in the federal public service last year, 279,296 held roles in the core public administration, while 78,569 were employed by separate agencies. That makes for a decrease of 2,756 jobs in 88 departments under the “core” category, and more than 7,000 from 26 separate agencies.
Between 2015 and 2025, the federal public service grew by 100,000 jobs. During that same period, Canada’s population increased by more than five million.
At its height, that translated to a 43 per cent growth during then-prime minister Justin Trudeau’s tenure, according to fiscal-year tracking just before the Liberals took power in 2015 up to 2024, while the Canadian population grew by 15 per cent. But Trudeau’s last year in power saw that growth dip to 39 per cent as of March 2025, compared to a 16.6 per cent population growth. Trudeau officially stepped down that month and Prime Minister Mark Carney (Nepean, Ont.) took the reins following his landslide Liberal leadership victory on March 9.
Ram Mathilakath, a former executive with the Parliamentary Budget Office and Treasury Board, echoed Wernick’s assessment. He said the numbers don’t show the churn that occurs in any given year and added that attrition itself accounts for anywhere between 12,000 to 15,000 retirements a year, or about eight to 12 per cent of the federal public service.
Last year’s budget forecast 5,000 job cuts
The 2024 budget pledged to shrink the size of the federal public service by 5,000 jobs over four years via attrition as part of an ongoing effort to “refocus” government spending first announced in 2023 and projected to save $15.8-billion.
At the time, then-finance minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.) highlighted the forecasted decline in the public service as a part of a “thoughtful” approach to spending.
“That is really significant. And it was important, particularly right now, to say that to Canadians,” Freeland said of the cuts during the April 2024 press conference at the spring budget lockup. Freeland now handles transport and internal trade in Carney’s cabinet.
“That’s why it was really important for me, in this budget, to announce that over four years, you’re going to see a decline in the public service by 5,000 people,” she said. “That is really significant. And it was important, particularly right now, to say that to Canadians.”
At the time, then-Treasury Board president Anita Anand (Oakville East, Ont.) said the cuts would be government-wide.
“We have seen a significant growth in the public service over the past number of years, specifically following the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was natural for us to have additional public servants in order to dispense with massive programs that we were putting in place,” said Anand, who is now foreign affairs minister, in April 2024.
“We are simply looking at ways in which we can save money, cut red tape, and ensure that our taxpayer dollars… are allocated towards our government’s priorities.”
Wernick added the new data is “not that surprising, given the Freeland budget,” and the bulk of job losses were likely among term or casual workers.
Unions not surprised by cuts
Ryan Campbell, an economist with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), said the union’s younger members have been impacted by the cuts.
“New public service employees come in on term or temporary contracts, and are often the first to let go,” he said, calling it “a troubling trends” that the next generation of public service staff are first on the chopping block.
PIPSC represents 65,000 employees in the federal public service, including scientists, engineers, auditors, nurses, and IT professionals.
“We’ve seen the negative impacts of what this does to individuals just getting started in their career,” Campbell said.
Nathan Prier, president of the Canadian Association of Professional Employees, also echoed that the job losses weren’t surprising, but said they are ideologically driven.
“They have a long track record on making decisions about the public service based on nothing but pure ideology, not on evidence,” he said, pointing to the Trudeau government spending more than $20-billion on outsourcing contracts last fiscal year, despite calls to cut back on spending.
“I’m not surprised at all that the last government lied to workers and Canadians. It’s more or less the same government that’s in power right now, with the big exception of Mark Carney,” Prier said.
“Firing all these employees just to hand potential taxpayer savings to [consulting firms] McKinsey and Deloitte and other private sector consultants. That’s a shell game we can’t afford in a national crisis.”
Carney pitches public service cap
Carney’s election platform promised a comprehensive review of government spending, saying federal programs aren’t working as well as they should.
“This review will focus on clear targets by departments and Crown corporations with an iterative process that deploys best approaches across the public sector,” the Liberal fiscal and costing plan says. “A portion of these savings will be redeployed to invest in technology and people in order to improve the quality of what the federal government does.”
In his first post-election press conference on May 2, Carney vowed to curb a bloated operating budget by “cutting waste, capping the public service, ending duplicative programs, and deploying technology to boost public sector productivity.”
The Montreal Economic Institute recently argued in a paper that the Carney government should “take a page from the Chrétien government’s 1994 program review” and cut tens of thousands of public service jobs. That would return the federal government’s per capita size to the pre-Trudeau era, and would reduce public spending by nearly $10-billion per year, according to the paper, published on May 15.
“The size of the Canadian public service once again requires attention. Despite the government belatedly acknowledging the need to restrain the growth of the federal bureaucracy, more decisive action is required,” said Conrad Eder, an associate researcher and the paper’s author.
mglass@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
Editor’s note: This piece was updated on May 22, 2025, at 5:35 p.m. to include comment from the CRA.
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