Surprise: federal job cuts happening mostly outside Ottawa

The federal government appears to have dropped a promise that cuts to the public service would mostly affect Ottawa, not other parts of the country.

The vast majority of federal job cuts appear in fact to be taking place elsewhere across Canada – which is the opposite of what the Tories suggested they would do.

The Flaherty budget tabled last March forecast 19,200 jobs eliminated and it promised that a heavy burden would be shouldered by the national capital region.

That’s not how it’s worked out.

Just over 18,000 federal public servants have received notices that they could lose their jobs.

According to statistics compiled by the federal public-sector union, the Public Service Alliance of Canada, just 35 per cent of those notices have gone out in the national capital region. Sixty-five per cent have gone out elsewhere in the country.

Fourteen per cent of the notices have gone to employees in Ontario, 13 per cent were issued in Quebec, 12 per cent went to the Prairies and Atlantic Canada received 10 per cent.

Calls to the office of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were referred to the Treasury Board, which did not respond to a request for comment from The Canadian Press.

Original Article
Source: the globe and mail
Author:  CP