Federal public service shrinks for 1st time in a decade

The federal public service has shrunk for the first time since 2015, after shedding nearly 10,000 jobs over the last year, according to new data released by the Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS).

Of the 9,807 jobs cut between 2024 and 2025, a significant majority — 7,051, or 72 per cent — were in federal agencies such as Parks Canada, the National Capital Commission and the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). The rest — 2,756 or 28 per cent — were in the core public administration.

In March 2024, 367,772 federal public servants were employed between the agencies and the administration. One year later, that number had dropped to 357,965, a 2.6 per cent decrease in the overall workforce.

This data does not include members of the RCMP, the Canadian Armed Forces or a few other employers.

The last time the federal public service shrank was a decade ago. There were 262,817 public servants in 2013, which dropped to 257,138 in 2014, and again to 257,034 in 2015. The number had been rising steadily until now.

CBC has reached out to TBS to ask how many of the jobs lost were in Ottawa and Gatineau, but has not received that information.

In November, the Treasury Board updated public service unions about how it was instructing departments to reduce spending to meet savings targets of $15 billion over four years, and the unions warned job cuts were coming.

The cuts were not spread evenly across the departments and agencies: Most of the recent cuts took place at CRA where 6,656 jobs were lost, leaving the tax agency with 52,499 employees.

CRA has announced rounds of layoffs over the last year, with more coming just this week.

Among the core departments, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada also took a big hit, losing 1,944 employees and leaving it with 11,148 workers.

A handful of departments and agencies saw growth in their workforces over last year, including Natural Resources Canada, which gained 293 employees, National Defence (381 employees), Global Affairs Canada (218 employees) and the Communications Security Establishment (196 employees).

During the recent federal election campaign, Prime Minister Mark Carney and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre both vowed to stop wasteful spending in the federal public service.

Poilievre said a Conservative government would reduce both the size of the public service and its use of contractors. Carney said his government would cap the public service and emphasize the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

The Liberal government has not released a budget since being elected. Carney has said it will do so in the fall.