Most provinces are looking to a leaner civil service to reduce the cost of government
As many governments across the country cut their civil services, union leaders are concerned they’re also letting go of some of the country’s top knowledge and experience since many of the cuts are being made through attrition.
Recently, the Ontario government announced it would allow the public service to shrink by 1,500 job cuts over the next two years, in addition to an earlier reduction of about 3,400 full-time public service employees announced in the 2009 budget.
“You’re losing corporate memory and skills sets,” says Warren (Smokey) Thomas, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU). “When you do these kinds of cuts you lose those who are bright and talented.”
Ontario is not alone. In B.C., the public service is expected to be reduced by more than 2,000 positions over a three-year term. In Saskatchewan, the equivalent of about 273 full-time jobs will be lost over the next year as that government reduces that workforce by 15 per cent over four years.
Manitoba is calling for a 10 per cent reduction in the civil service, New Brunswick has a hiring freeze and Nova Scotia is looking to save $250 million through wage restraint.
In these provinces, much like in Ontario, many of the jobs will be eliminated through retirements and vacancies.
While the federal election has made the Harper government’s recent budget a moot point, it did call for $4 billion in savings by 2014–2015, which the Public Service Alliance of Canada feared could lead to massive job cuts.
Thomas says experience shows it takes a few months to a year before the full impact of job losses are felt within an organization, but by then those left behind are often ready to jump to the private sector.
“They feel bad about not getting the work done and they’re being forced to do overtime,” he says. “In a lot of professions people can make much better money in the private sector. That’s the myth — that public servants are overpaid. The majority in Ontario are making under $40,000 a year.”
Thomas says the result is a knowledge and experience gap. Not only is it difficult to predict how many employees will retire, there is no guarantee the departments they exit can function without their skills.
He adds that little is being done in the interim in terms of succession planning to make sure the corporate memory leaving with these jobs is somehow maintained. He says it’s a lesson the Mike Harris government learned in the 1990s.
“They cut too deep and then had to find a way back.”
Already, Thomas says many public service organizations are stretched because of the current hiring freeze in Ontario. Baby boomers are retiring but no one is replacing them.
“There will be people left behind doing more with less,” he says. “The fact that the government has not identified which jobs will be cut says clearly that this exercise is based on political targets, not delivering quality services.”
A commission into reforming Ontario’s public service, chaired by economist Don Drummond, is expected to provide advice on reforms that would help accelerate the government’s plan to eliminate the deficit. Thomas is concerned about what this means for the public service overall.
“It could lead the government to simply stop doing some things. It will no doubt get out of doing things wholesale,” he says. “The government thinks the only way to gain efficiencies is to cut, cut, cut.”
