More than 1,000 workers at Shared Services Canada have received letters notifying them their jobs may be affected by cuts, public sector unions say.
In an email, Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) spokesperson Jeffrey Vallis said 530 union members across PSAC and the Government Services Union who work at Shared Services received workforce adjustment letters Tuesday. The department provides IT services to the federal government.
Another 737 members of the Professional Institute for the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) are also affected, according to union spokesperson Johanne Fillion.
Workers at Shared Services who are members of other unions may also have been notified, but the department did not disclose the total number of letters it will be sending out or how many jobs it will be cutting.
In an email, spokesperson Nick Wells said the department is “in the process of notifying employees and executives that their position is affected and may no longer be required.”
“We are unable to share the number of employees who will be receiving letters until we have finished this process,” Wells said.
Most of the affected PIPSC members at Shared Services work in IT, and the union said job cuts in the department expose the government to risks that come with outsourcing the work, such as weakened cybersecurity and reduced oversight of artificial intelligence.
The notices are the latest in a flurry of workforce adjustment letters being sent out across the public service.
Statistics Canada said Tuesday it is cutting about 850 jobs and 12 per cent of its executive ranks, and a public service union said more than 3,000 workers at the agency were issued workforce adjustment notices.
Workforce adjustment
Workforce adjustment is the process through which the government makes alternative employment opportunities available, where possible, for permanent workers who lose their positions.
Public servants are notified if their job may be, or is being, eliminated.
Those who receive workforce adjustment notices could have an opportunity to trade places with an employee who wants to leave (in what’s called alternation) to compete for a position.
Budget 2025 aims to reduce the size of the public service by nearly 40,000 workers from a peak of 368,000 in 2023-2024, amounting to a reduction of around 10 per cent in the overall public service headcount. Many of these jobs have already been eliminated.
The government has said it intends to rely on attrition “to the greatest extent possible” by lowering age eligibility rules for retirement and offering what amounts to $1.5 billion in incentives.
Shared Services is targeting savings of about $1 billion over the next four fiscal years, starting with about $160 million in 2026-2027.
According to the budget, the department is trying to meet a 15 per cent savings target by finding efficiencies through standardizing platforms, eliminating low-use or redundant licences and retiring outdated technologies and infrastructure, among other reforms.