After four austerity budgets and lots of hide and seek, there are finally some answers about what services federal departments are going to cut. CCPA’s Senior Economist David Macdonald has examined over 180 departmental Reports on Plans and Priorities in order to estimate employment cuts down to the program level and determine where federal spending cuts hit the hardest. He finds that cuts have disproportionately focused on service delivery, and that the total number of federal public service jobs cut over the entire austerity period (March 2012 to March 2016) will be 28,700—with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada experiencing the largest loss of positions. By 2016, the total number of people working for the federal government will have fallen by 8%, almost double the 4.8% figure reported in Budget 2012.
Read the full analysis here.