Federal workers are starting to learn more about planned job cuts across the public service after Statistics Canada told employees on Monday that 850 positions will be eliminated from the department over the next two years.
The federal public service underwent a significant review in 2025, and Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget vowed to slash 16,000 jobs by 2028.
More details about the “workforce adjustments” are expected by the end of the week, according to an email to staff from chief statistician André Loranger. That will include notifying the first 100 Statistics Canada employees whose positions are now considered surplus.
In all, the department will send 3,274 “workforce adjustment notices” to employees whose services “may no longer be required,” according to the email. The bulk of those will receive notice before Jan. 27.
Not everyone who receives notice will lose their job, but some could be shuffled into a different one. Twelve per cent of Statistics Canada’s 99 executive positions will also be cut.
In a statement to CBC, the agency said it “remains focused on serving Canadians and adapting to future needs as we move through this period of change.”
As of March 31, 2025, Statistics Canada had 7,274 employees on its payroll.
About 940 of the notices will be sent to members of the Professional Institute Of The Public Service Of Canada (PIPSC) at Statistics Canada.
“It really is concerning,” said PIPSC president Sean O’Reilly. “Statistics Canada produces data that is key to everything we do in our daily lives, and to see these kinds of cuts, it concerns me how this is going to affect that data.”
The government is offering early retirement incentives in an attempt to ease the impact of the job cuts.
Ruth Lau MacDonald, the Public Service Alliance of Canada’s executive vice-president for the National Capital Region, said there’s a lot of “stress and anxiety” among the union’s members as employees await news of more cuts.
“There’s a lot of speculation because we didn’t see those plans department by department,” she said.
Other departments including Shared Services Canada and Global Affairs Canada are also expected to release details about their own workforce adjustments in the coming days.
