People make their way through downtown Ottawa on June 18, 2024, as temperatures hit 32C in what meteorologists called a heat dome. The Canadian Press/Sean Kilpatrick
The number of people applying for a job in the federal government plummeted last year as Ottawa works to slash the size of the public service.
Two years ago, there were more than a million applications for jobs in the federal public service.
But between April 1, 2025 and March 31, 2026, that number fell by nearly 30 percent, to less than 735,000.
The number of job ads the government posted was also down almost 40 percent, while the number of people who left the public service, including retirements and resignations, increased 12 percent.
There were also around 52 percent fewer promotions within the public service in 2025-26, compared to a year earlier.
In Budget 2025, the Liberal government committed to cutting the number of public service positions by about 40,000 people by April 2029 from a peak of almost 368,000 in 2024.
In the last year, the size of the public service has shrunk by more than 12,600 people. Treasury Board data shows there were 357,965 employees at the end of March 2025, compared to 345,282 at the end of March 2026.
About half of those jobs were casual, student and term positions within the federal government, while the others were permanent employees.
The federal government has launched an early retirement program as part of its efforts to cut the number of public servants. In December, the government began sending letters with information on the program to about 68,000 public servants who may be eligible.
Employees as young as 50 with at least 10 years of employment and at least two years of pensionable service are eligible to apply. If approved, they would be able to retire with an immediate pension based on years of service, with no penalty for leaving early.
As of July 7, the government has so far received 8,235 applications for the program. Eligible employees can apply until July 24.
Rola Salem, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, said in an email that the decision to retire from the public service is a personal decision and that the government “does not have a specific target for the number of eligible public servants who may take advantage of this incentive.”
“We are encouraged by the level of participation in the program to date,” she said.
Across Canada, employers added 18,000 jobs in June, Statistics Canada said Friday, mostly in part-time and private sector work.
That pushed the unemployment rate down a tenth of a point to 6.5 percent, back to where it stood in January.
