Federal government employment in census metropolitan areas

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Three-quarters of all federal government employees worked in a census metropolitan area (CMA) in September, a proportion that has been stable since 2001.

In September, the federal government had 419,600 employees. Of these, 316,800, or 75.5%, worked in 1 of the 33 CMAs.

The largest concentration of federal employees, 132,600, worked in the CMA of Ottawa–Gatineau. They accounted for nearly one-third (31.6%) of total federal government employment, up from about 26% in the mid-1990s.

The next largest concentrations of federal employment were in the CMAs of Montréal (23,800) and Toronto (23,100).

Federal employees in Ottawa–Gatineau represented 19.7% of the CMA's total employed labour force of 673,800, up from 18.4% in 2008. This increase was due to a 6.2% rise in federal employment, combined with a 0.7% decline in total employment.

The proportion of federal public servants in the total employed labour force in other CMAs ranged from 0.1% in Oshawa to 8.7% in Kingston.

Note: To provide comparability between the Public Sector Employment program and the Labour Force Survey, statistics for this release are based on the 2001 Standard Geographical Classification census metropolitan area (CMA) definition.

Additional CMAs based on the 2006 Standard Geographical Classification (Moncton, Barrie, Guelph, Peterborough, Brantford and Kelowna) are presented here, although they were census agglomerations when based on the 2001 Standard Geographical Classification.

The term "federal government" in this release includes all organizations controlled by the federal government that are not-for-profit and produce non commercial goods and services on behalf of the government and its citizens. It includes agencies (for example the Canada Revenue Agency), the Canadian military (regular forces and reservists), and uniformed Royal Canadian Mounted Police members. It does not include employees of federal government business enterprises that operate as commercial corporations in the marketplace.

The employment count reflects the last pay period of the month of September.

Available on CANSIM: table 183-0003.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 1713.

Labour Force Survey data can be found on CANSIM.

Available on CANSIM: tables 282-0052 and 282-0056.

Data tables on public sector employment are also available from the National economic accounts module of our website.

For more information or to order data, contact Client Services (613-951-0767; PSSD-Info-DSSP@statcan.gc.ca). To enquire about the concepts, methods or data quality of this release, contact Alain Baril (613-951-4131; alain.baril@statcan.gc.ca), Public Sector Statistics Division.