Union says federal public service job cuts are going to be ‘like the Hunger Games’

David Fraser · CBC News

· Posted: Jan 23, 2026 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

Plans to reduce the federal service mean thousands of roles will change or disappear, in a complicated process that thousands of employees across the civil service are navigating as they receive notices this month.

How the downsizing will impact employees depends on their department, and whether they’re covered by a union’s collective bargaining agreement.

Many are being offered buyouts, early retirement packages and voluntary departures.

Others are engaging in a process allowing civil servants to trade jobs. The program — negotiated by unions in collective bargaining — matches job-seekers with employees exiting the civil service.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) has more than 2,100 members using an online platform it created to help civil servants find these matches, while the Treasury Board launched its own internal platform last year.

Other unions, like the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), and some government departments, have created similar platforms.

The online sites connect federal workers and allow them to share experiences about different jobs.

Known in bargaining as “alternation”, PIPSC president Sean O’Reilly says the process helps employees affected by job cuts stay employed by finding positions being vacated through someone leaving the public service.

But some departments “don’t want to participate” in the job-matching process, O’Reilly said.

“It doesn't seem like there's a concerted effort to actually try to make sure that the alternation process works,” he said.

PSAC National President Sharon DeSousa called the process “one of the best ways for workers who received an opting or surplus letter to stay in the public service,” but said a centralized government platform would have been more “transparent” and “fair.”

“Cuts were already happening, and workers were left to figure it out on their own,” she said.

'Like The Hunger Games'

Employees covered under collective-bargaining may know what their options are, but not their specific situation yet.

Departments are moving at different paces, and until the budget passes after Parliament returns next week, certain measures — like early retirements — can't happen.

DeSousa says her members need to know what their future holds, but “don’t have that information.”

If a department does not sufficiently reduce staffing through early retirement and voluntary departures, workers wanting to remain employed will have to apply for other positions.

In such cases, members of the same team may have to compete with each other for a limited number of remaining positions. This process does not take union seniority into account and is known as "selection of employees for retention or layoff".

This amounts to the government pitting workers against each other, according to PIPSC.

“It's going to be like The Hunger Games,” O’Reilly said, referring to the dystopian action film in which adolescents fight to the death in a televised event.

Shrinking public service

The government plans to eliminate approximately 40,000 positions compared to the peak reached in 2023-2024.

This 10 per cent reduction in size is aimed at making savings of nearly $13 billion over four years.

In the last year, the civil service has already shrunk by 10,000 jobs.

A comprehensive spending review launched in 2025 identified 16,000 full-time positions to be eliminated, including 650 management roles. The government also plans to rely on early retirements and departures related to the end of funding for certain programs to reach its target.

The options unionized employees have available, like alternation, are collectively bargained to facilitate a "reasonable treatment of employees during periods of downsizing or change," according to Jim Mitchell, an academic and former public servant who co-authored a book on the service.

The process takes time by design, to avoid dramatic changes, but still allows the government to "manage its workforce as best it can to meet the needs of the country as it defines them," he said.