Employees with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are the largest group on a list of federal civil servants slated for possible layoffs.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the Ottawa-based union for over 180,000 public-sector workers across the country, said 530 of its members were served notices Thursday that “they may lose their jobs.”
Of the 530, the union said, 235 work at AAFC, while another 132 are with the federal defence department, 86 at Transport Canada, 68 at the foreign affairs and international trade department and nine across three other departments.
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“Very little additional information” has yet been provided on the impact of the possible cuts for public services, PSAC said, nor has the government said how many positions would be “eliminated completely.”
“We’d like to know more about what all of these cuts mean for Canadians and the economy,” PSAC national president Robyn Benson said in a release.
Of those 530 staffers served notice of possible layoffs, 235 work in the National Capital Region (NCR) in Ottawa, 100 in Quebec, 55 in Nova Scotia, 38 in Saskatchewan, 26 in British Columbia, 25 in Manitoba, 21 in Alberta and 19 outside the NCR in Ontario.
PSAC said Thursday’s announcements bring the total of PSAC members served such notices to 21,613 across the country, dating back to the release of the 2012 federal budget.
“To compound the lack of transparency, it is unknown at this time exactly how many actual positions have been cut or how many people have lost their jobs,” the union said Thursday.
Of those 21,613 possible-layoff notices to PSAC members across 58 departments, the union on its website has reported 933 such notices at AAFC, 480 at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, 251 at the Canadian Grain Commission, 481 at the Public Health Agency of Canada and 536 at the Canadian International Development Agency.
