News: Women make strides in PS, steps still to be taken
Published by Patrick March 7th, 2007 in Womens Issues, Youth Tags: public-services, women.The latest profile of federal workers shows women have made important progress in the public service.
The proportion of women within the segment of the public service known as the “core public administration,” or CPA increased steadily over the period studied — 1995 and 2006 — and since 1999, women have outnumbered men, Statistics Canada data released yesterday showed.
The study compared data from 1995 and 2006 to track employment trends in the federal public service and how workers compare to the rest of the country’s workforce.
The report provides a profile of employees in CPA, which excludes members of the RCMP and Canadian Forces.
Last year, women accounted for 54 per cent of all CPA employees, but the numbers should be read with caution, said Ed Cashman, executive vice-president for the Ottawa region of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, one of the unions that represents federal employees.
“The truth is, if you go and look and see where women are employed in the federal public service, they are not where they should be,” he said.
There are too many women in entry-level positions and not enough in high-level management jobs, Mr. Cashman said.
The size of the public service is also smaller than 11 years earlier, the average age of public servants is rising and, as in other industries, there has been a shift to more knowledge-based jobs, the study found.
Last March, a little more than 380,700 Canadians were working for the federal government, down slightly from about 382,000 in 1995.
The numbers have been rebounding since reaching a low in 1999 and growing at an annual rate of 2.2 per cent.
Within the CPA, workers aged 45 and over accounted for 52 per cent of the total in 2006, compared with just under 39 per cent of the general workforce.
The median age of women in the CPA was 44 in 2006, compared to 40 in the general workforce, and for men it was 46, compared to 40.
The government is not prepared to deal with the gap that will be left by retiring baby boomers, said Mr. Cashman, and it needs to start investing now in training younger workers, he warned.
“What’s worrisome is the fact that this crunch, the baby boomers leaving, will happen earlier in the public service than it will elsewhere,” he said.
“This is going to have a profound impact, I believe, not only on the public service, but on the services rendered to Canadians.”
Another trend noted in the report is the shift to knowledge-based jobs.
In 2006, an estimated 102,700 employees worked in knowledge-based categories, an overall increase of about 25,400 since 1995.
At the same time, employment in the less knowledge-based job categories has declined to about 70,600.
Knowledge-based jobs include scientists, economists and other professionals, and members of the foreign service while secretarial, general labour and trades jobs fall under the less knowledge-based umbrella.