February 3, 2026
RED FM News Desk
The federal government has released its most detailed account yet of how it plans to reduce the size of Canada’s public service, outlining significant job cuts over the coming years.
Budget 2025 set out a plan to shrink the federal workforce by nearly 40,000 positions from a peak of about 368,000 employees in the 2023–24 fiscal year.
The government has said it aims to rely on attrition “to the greatest extent possible,” allowing positions to disappear as employees retire or leave voluntarily. However, thousands of jobs are also expected to be eliminated through a comprehensive expenditure review — a wide-ranging cost-cutting exercise affecting much of the federal government.
In recent months, thousands of public servants have received letters warning that their positions could be at risk. Public-sector unions have pressed the government for clearer information about the scale of the reductions and which departments, programs, and services may be affected.
The government previously said it would wait until employees had been notified before releasing more detailed figures. On Friday, the Treasury Board provided new insight by publishing a dataset that breaks down planned job cuts by federal department and agency, offering the clearest picture so far of where reductions are expected to occur.
Loading ...
