Public sector employment

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Public sector employment on a seasonally adjusted basis was up 0.8% in the third quarter to 3.6 million employees, following a slight decrease the previous quarter.

The biggest gains in public sector employment were in British Columbia (+9,000), followed by Ontario (+6,000) and Quebec (+4,000).

Federal general government employment rose by 4,000 or 0.9% in the third quarter.

Following three consecutive declines, employment in the provincial and territorial general government remained virtually unchanged in the third quarter, at 355,000 employees. Employment in this component of the public sector has fallen by 5,000 since its most recent peak in the third quarter of 2008.

Public sector employees accounted for 20.5% of total employment in Canada in the third quarter, up 0.2 percentage points from the previous quarter. This slight increase was mainly as a result of a drop in private sector employment.

Seasonally adjusted employment statistics are not available for other public sector components, such as local general government, educational institutions, health and social service institutions and government business enterprises, or for wages and salaries. Trend analysis for these components and for wages and salaries is done on a year-over-year basis using unadjusted data.

On an unadjusted basis, public sector employment increased by 1.9% between the third quarter of 2008 and the third quarter of 2009. Declines in provincial and territorial general government were more than offset by gains in all other sectors.

In educational institutions, employment increased by 1.6%. This was mainly due to a gain of 7,000 employees in universities, where employment resumed its upward trend after edging down in the third quarter of 2008.

Total public sector wages and salaries rose by 5.1% on a year-over-year basis. This increase was due mainly to retroactive pay, in the wake of collective agreements for a large proportion of federal government employees.

Note: A seasonally adjusted series is one from which seasonal movements have been eliminated. The seasonally-adjusted data series begin in January 2001, due to a modification of the methodology in one of the public sector employment data sources that has caused a break in the unadjusted series that year.

Wages and salaries data are not available on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The public sector includes all economic entities controlled by government, and comprises four major components: the three levels of government (federal, provincial and territorial and local) and each has a general government component comprising ministries, departments, agencies and non-autonomous funds, autonomous funds and organizations, and non-autonomous pension plans; provincial and territorial government also includes universities and colleges, and health and social service institutions; local government also includes school boards; and, the fourth component government business enterprises, which are institutional units controlled by government but that operate as commercial corporations in the marketplace.

Available on CANSIM: tables 183-0002 and 183-0004.

Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 1713.

For a more detailed description of how public sector employment is defined and reconciled with other information sources, refer to the document entitled Reconciliation of Public Sector Employment Estimates from Multiple Information Sources by clicking on survey number 1713.

Available on CANSIM: tables 183-0021 and 183-0022.

Data tables on public sector employment are also available in 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.