Almost 29,000 jobs gone by 2016.
from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Despite assurances by the federal government that spending cuts would target the "back office" and avoid cuts to services, a new analysis by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives finds spending cuts have disproportionately focused on service delivery.
The analysis, by CCPA senior economist David Macdonald, examines over 180 departmental reports in order to estimate employment cuts down to the program level and determine where the cuts hit hardest.
"Cuts within the large federal departments are not coming from the 'back office'. Instead, most of the job cuts in big departments are coming from programs that deliver services to Canadians," said Macdonald.
According to the analysis, the total number of federal public service jobs cut over the entire austerity period, from March 2012 to March 2016, will be 28,700. By 2016, the total number of people working for the federal government will have fallen by eight percent, almost double the 4.8 percent figure reported in last year's budget.
"Human Resources and Skills Development Canada will experience the largest loss of positions, totalling over 5,700 by 2016. While HRSDC is a large department, this cut will reduce the department's workforce by 24 percent," said Macdonald. "At the program level, the social development program supporting homelessness initaitves will suffer a 62 percent cut to its staff."
While National Defence and the Canada Revenue Agency are scheduled to cut 3,577 and 2,491 positions respectively, the proportional impact of those cuts represent a relatively smaller four percent and six percent drop, respectively.
Proportionally, Statistics Canada will be the hardest hit of the larger federal departments, losing over one-third of their staff (35 percent). Veterans Affairs is scheduled to eliminate almost one-quarter of its staff (24 percent). Both the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada will lose one in five of their employees.
"Veterans Affairs will be cutting a third of the staff to the program that supports disability, death and financial benefits for veterans and 20 percent of the staff at Veterans Health Care," said Macdonald.
"It is only after four austerity budgets that there are finally some answers about what services departments are going to cut. Unfortunately, those answers come far too late to decide whether cutting staffing for veterans health care, for instance, is worth doing in order to balance the budget a year or two early."
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