VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Dec. 03, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The federal workforce has grown more rapidly than the Canadian population starting in 2015/16, imposing significant costs on taxpayers, finds a new study published today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think tank.
“Federal government employment has grown significantly faster than the Canadian population starting in 2015/16, and we’re already seeing the consequences,” said Ben Eisen, senior fellow at the Fraser Institute and author of Growing Government Workforce Puts Pressure on Federal Finances, the first in a series of studies on federal reform.
The study finds that between 2015/16 and 2022/23, the latest year of data available, the number of full-time federal workers has increased by 26.1 per cent compared to growth in the overall Canadian population of 9.1 per cent.
“Growth in federal employment has almost tripled the rate of population growth since 2015/16, which is simply unsustainable,” commented Eisen.
How much will this growth in government cost Canadian taxpayers?
According to the study, if federal hiring had simply kept pace with the rate of Canada’s population growth, taxpayers would have saved $7.5 billion.
The reduced spending on federal employees would lower the federal deficit, which is expected to exceed $35.3 billion in 2022/23.
“The growth in the number of federal employees has been a major contributor to the growth in federal government spending and the size of deficits in recent years,” Eisen said.
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The Fraser Institute is an independent Canadian public policy research and educational organization with offices in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Halifax, and Montreal and ties to a global network of think-tanks in 87 countries. Its mission is to improve the quality of life for Canadians, their families and future generations by studying, measuring and broadly communicating the effects of government policies, entrepreneurship and choice on their well-being. To protect the Institute’s independence, it does not accept grants from governments or contracts for research. Visit www.fraserinstitute.org
