As Ottawa set out to trim the size of public service, a new analysis from the Parliamentary Budget Officer has revealed just how much it has ballooned over the years.

In 2006-07, the number of total full-time equivalent (FTE) public servants was 335,000. Once the final accounting is done for the year 2024-25, that figure is expected to hit 445,000, an increase of over 30 per cent.

The government expects public service jobs to fall to nearly 415,000 by 2027-28, according to its most recent departmental plans. In the 2019-20 pre-pandemic year, this figure was 382,000, and even at the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2021-22, it was lower than what it will be in 2024-25, at 413,000. 

This year’s departmental plan shows that the public service was 13,000 positions larger in 2024-25 than the government had forecast in its departmental plan for that year.

The Canada Revenue Agency accounted for one-third of this unplanned increase in 2024-25, followed by growth at Employment and Social Development Canada, Canada Border Services Agency and Indigenous Services Canada, the report says. 

The civil service will lose 5,000 jobs in 2025-26, to reach a total of 440,000, according to the current departmental plans. This fall is due to “sunsetting” programs that will no longer run, like the consumer carbon tax, which will no longer require staff in the CRA, for example. 

Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice—Champlain, Que.) has launched consultations for the 2025-26 budget, and has asked departments to find 7.5 per cent in savings in 2026-27, 10 per cent in 2027-28, and 15 per cent in 2028-29. There may still be more shake-ups to the public service incoming, and the PBO’s calculations did not account for the potential impact of Champagne’s ordered cuts. 

The feds have also added $8.3-billion in defence spending in 2025-26, and the PBO also did not take into account the staffing additions that will be required to deliver it. 

A version of this piece first appeared in Politics This Morning, your go-to source for insider news, analysis, and updates on where all the key political players are that day. Get more insider coverage directly to your inbox from The Hill Times’ editor Peter Mazereeuw and reporter Riddhi Kachhela in this subscriber-only daily newsletter. Sign up here.

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Riddhi Kachhela is a news reporter covering all things politics for The Hill Times' daily subscriber newsletter, Politics This Morning. She studied journalism at Goldsmiths University of London, U.K., and worked as a reporter for local papers in London before moving to Canada. She has also previously dabbled in screenwriting and film production, and is a qualified chartered accountant. See all stories BY RIDDHI KACHHELA