Public Sector Employment Figures Released

Michael Hardner · April 5, 2009

Federal Government employment increased about 3.6% from late 2008.

The US Federal government statistics, available here show that the US has 1.8 million federal employees, compared to 405 thousand in Canada. In other words, we could lay off half of our federal workforce, and still employ more government employees per capita than in the US.

I'm a supporter of a strong public sector, however these workers need to be used efficiently. The mind boggles as to what Canada could achieve if they re-deployed 200 thousand employees.

tango · April 8, 2009

To the provinces?

Powers are distributed differently in Canada and the US, federal-state

You can't compare apples and oranges, unless you know what the distribution of public employees is across all public sectors.

Edited April 8, 2009 by Charles Anthony
deleted quote of entire Opening Post

eyeball · April 8, 2009

Statistics Canada
Federal Government employment increased about 3.6% from late 2008.

The US Federal government statistics, available here show that the US has 1.8 million federal employees, compared to 405 thousand in Canada. In other words, we could lay off half of our federal workforce, and still employ more government employees per capita than in the US.

I'm a supporter of a strong public sector, however these workers need to be used efficiently. The mind boggles as to what Canada could achieve if they re-deployed 200 thousand employees.

Yep. I almost redeployed one myself today.

There we were happily working away on the boat and getting ready to go fishing when this fellow comes along and starts chatting up one of the deck hands and asking about survival suits. I was in the engine room at the time and when I came topside I found my crew struggling to get into their suits as fast as they could.

This fellow turned out to be a provincial WorkSafeBC 'inspector'. He wanted everyone to get into their suits and we only had one minute to do so, including me. I was covered in grease and oil and he wanted me to just suddenly drop what I was doing and pull on a suit too. I said okay but because I was filthy I wanted to get cleaned up first. He said no, I wouldn't have time to get cleaned up in an emergency and he wanted me to get into it immediately. I said excuse me but I'm not going to just jump into an $800 survival suit to satisfy him and I showed him my skipper's papers including my marine emergency duties endorsement plus my log book which recorded the drills I have my crews do from time to time. He wasn't buying any of it and decided to write me up. It was all I could do to not throw the weasly little prick into the salt-chuck right there on the spot.

It was at that point when the electronic monitoring guy suddenly showed up with our new improved surveillance cameras, new improved computer, and new improved twice the price invoice for the whole shebang.

Yeah, there we were happily working to get ready to go produce, to contribute to our economy, to feed our families and pay our bills and pay our taxes...

I could redeploy tens of thousands of these idiots without thinking twice about it, but its freakin' hopeless. I think we'll have to kill the useless bastards off myself.

Edited April 8, 2009 by eyeball

August1991 · April 8, 2009

To the provinces?
Powers are distributed differently in Canada and the US, federal-state

You can't compare apples and oranges, unless you know what the distribution of public employees is across all public sectors.

Tango, this is a good point. I took a quick look at Statistics Canada methodology and it draws a fine line between different types of government-controlled institutions. For example, I think postal employees are included but not postal clerks in pharmacies. I am not certain if the military is included (but I suspect not).

Michael's point is well taken however. Canada's federal bureaucracy is bigger than the US federal bureaucracy (on a per capita or per $ GDP basis) and in both countries, the bureaucracies are growing. Human Resources has 25,000 alone. Canada Health has 10,000 employees although health care is a provincial jurisdiction.

What are all those people doing? IMHO, alot of this amounts to an iron rice bowl.

This fellow turned out to be a provincial WorkSafeBC 'inspector'. He wanted everyone to get into their suits and we only had one minute to do so, including me. I was covered in grease and oil and he wanted me to just suddenly drop what I was doing and pull on a suit too. I said okay but because I was filthy I wanted to get cleaned up first. He said no, I wouldn't have time to get cleaned up in an emergency and he wanted me to get into it immediately. I said excuse me but I'm not going to just jump into an $800 survival suit to satisfy him and I showed him my skipper's papers including my marine emergency duties endorsement plus my log book which recorded the drills I have my crews do from time to time. He wasn't buying any of it and decided to write me up. It was all I could do to not throw the weasly little prick into the salt-chuck right there on the spot.
It was at that point when the electronic monitoring guy suddenly showed up with our new improved surveillance cameras, new improved computer, and new improved twice the price invoice for the whole shebang.

Bureaucracy has a curious way of working. First, they want to see you in the survival suit. Then, they just want to see the suit itself. Then, an invoice for the suit is enough. Finally, all they need to see is an invoice for maintenance of the survival suit - regardless whether you in fact have a survival suit on board or not.

A system should put the incentives where they will do the most good and bureaucratic inspectors are rarely the right place.

Edited April 8, 2009 by August1991

eyeball · April 8, 2009

Bureaucracy has a curious way of working. First, they want to see you in the survival suit. Then, they just want to see the suit itself. Then, an invoice for the suit is enough. Finally, all they need to see is an invoice for maintenance of the survival suit - regardless whether you in fact have a survival suit on board or not.
A system should put the incentives where they will do the most good and bureaucratic inspectors are rarely the right place.

I think its going the other way myself. In the case of BC I wonder if the downturn in the economy means these inspectors have run out of people to inspect but they still need to justify their existance and so they're just inspecting whoever they can. Anyone who is still woking is just grist for their mill. We're their resource and they're exploiting it the way I exploit fish.

Michael Hardner · April 8, 2009

For example, I think postal employees are included but not postal clerks in pharmacies.

Auguste,

Not true - those are employees of government businesses under the definition and not included. I don't think the US figure included postal either, but I can't recall exactly.

M.Dancer · April 8, 2009

I wonder if the CND includes DND...

tango · April 8, 2009

My apologies ... it appears the data includes federal, provincial and local.

In which case, only part of it can be compared to US federal .... but do we know the US distribution of state and local?

I'm very interested in knowing how much could be saved in public wages if we scrapped all of the mean-tested income programs and substituted a guaranteed annual income. I suspect it would pay for itself.

Topaz · April 9, 2009

I remember when Bush came to DC, they were talking about Fed employees and they included the military. Does Canada included the miltary as Federal employees?

tango · April 9, 2009

I think it's clear that since we don't know what's being compared, conclusions are not warranted.

tango · April 9, 2009

Military personnel and federal government employees working outside the country are also included, as military bases, external affairs embassies and consulates are deemed to be Canadian locations.

http://www.statcan.gc.ca/imdb-bmdi/documen...1_T9_V1-eng.pdf