Public Service Alliance of Canada BC

source: The Ottawa Citizen, Jan 11, pg A1

Fat City is back. And according to a study of federal public service employment trends released yesterday, it’s putting on weight at a rapid rate.

The Statistics Canada study also found that, on average, public servants in this region are younger and more highly trained than those elsewhere in Canada.

The study reported that the number of people who work for the “core public administration” in the national capital region, which includes Ottawa, Gatineau and surrounding areas, grew by a stunning 20 per cent between 1995 and 2006, an additional 12,800 jobs.

By contrast, federal employment in the category fell 5.6 per cent nationally during the same period, shrinking by more than 10,000 to just under 178,000.

The core public administration represents nearly half of all federal employment and includes almost the entire public service other than the Canada Revenue Agency and the Canada Border Services Agency.

Since 1995, the number working in the core public administration has declined everywhere except Prince Edward Island, where it edged up marginally, and Ontario. But the Ontario growth was all in this region; other parts of the province experienced a 23.4-per-cent drop.

In short, the national capital region has been feasting at the buffet table while the rest of Canada has been on a diet.

If this keeps up, we may not swagger, but we may soon jiggle.

Nationally, employment in the core public administration has been rising slowly since 1999 after falling after 1995, when the government embarked on a sweeping program review.

But that dip-and-rise pattern is notably absent in the National Capital region, where core federal employment has grown steadily since 1995. In 2006, there were 75,700 core public servants in this region, compared to 62,900 11 years ago.

In 1995, one in three core public servants was based in this region. By 2006, that had grown to 42.6 per cent.

The employment totals include part-timers, students and casual employees, but not those working for the federal government on private contracts.

The Canada Public Service Agency, which manages the government’s human resources, was unable to offer an explanation yesterday for the increase in public service employment in this region.

But Linda Duxbury, a professor at Carleton University’s Sprott School of Business, believes the growing requirement for bilingualism provides much of the answer.

“A lot of the jobs now are bilingual imperative, especially the knowledge jobs,” she said in an interview. “This is where you’re going to find the bilingual workforce.”

The bilingualism requirement, coupled with the withdrawal of government language-training programs, makes it hard for candidates in other parts of Canada to compete for government jobs, she said.

“What I think is that people in other parts of Canada who are not bilingual self-select out of the government.”

The Statistics Canada study suggests that part of the answer lies in the shift to knowledge-based work within the public service.

Knowledge-based workers — physicists, chemists, engineers, ecologists, analysts, economists, programmers, accountants, lawyers, artists and the like — made up 57.8 per cent of all core federal employees in 2006. In 1995, they accounted for just more than four in 10.

But the growth has been heavily concentrated in the National Capital region, where knowledge-based workers now make up more than three-quarters of core federal public servants.

This explains about half the increase in core federal employment in the region, according to Statistics Canada. The other half, the agency said, could be the result of changes in the provincial distribution of public service jobs for other reasons.

But Ms. Duxbury said she doubted that explanation, noting that there are educated workforces in many parts of the country. “That’s not a reason for Ottawa versus anywhere else.”

Not surprisingly, the number of less-skilled workers in the core public service has plummeted over the past 11 years.

These employees — clerical staff, secretaries, typists, support workers, general labour and trades and similar occupations — still represent a majority in six of 10 provinces.

But overall, they accounted for only four in 10 core public servants in 2006 — and barely one in five in this region. In 1995, they represented 56.5 per cent of all core federal public servants.

Driven by the aging boomer population, the study says the core public service has also become significantly older since 1995. In that year, four in 10 employees were 45 or older. By 2006, that had risen to more than half.

While federal workers 45 or older represent a majority in every province, the National Capital region is, again, an exception. In 2006, only 48 per cent fell into that category.

The younger workforce is a product of the growth in the federal public service in this region, according to the report, since new employees tend to be younger than existing workers.

As well, women, who made up 46 per cent of core public servants in 1995, continue to expand their presence. They represented 54 per cent of the core public administration in 2006, and nearly 57 per cent in the National Capital region.

For comparison purposes, the study also provides employment numbers for “federal general government,” which includes the entire public service, the Canadian Forces, the RCMP and other agencies, such as the CBC and the Library of Parliament.

In March 2006, there were 380,700 people employed in this broader federal public sector, down by about 1,300 from 1995. The number bottomed out at 326,500 in 1999, but has rebounded since the millennium.

Four provinces — Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Prince Edward Island — have seen increases in general government employees. Elsewhere, the numbers have fallen, with Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador suffering the steepest declines.

Again, this region has fared well, although the growth in total federal employees has been less dramatic than in the core federal public service.

The region had 112,200 federal employees in 2006, an increase of 7.9 per cent since 1995. About three in 10 federal workers now live here.