Quote:
Originally Posted by S-Man
Let me guess - there's no upper limit to the number of public servants that need to be added on, and paid well, to make things function 'properly'.
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Obviously there's an upper limit. We don't need 1 million federal employees.
But with a growing number of people requesting your services, you eventually need more staff. It's like that for any business. A cafe with 100 customers needs a lot more staff than a cafe with 10 customers.
It's not a linear relationship because of economies of scale (ie. a 10% increase in population may only require say a 5% increase in staff) but it's still an increase. There's only so much labour a single person-hour can do.
Pay doesn't have to be exceptional but it does have to be competitive with the rest of the job market to attract good candidates. Which for pretty much any skilled job in the federal government, it actually isn't. Despite all the stuff we hear about how federal workers are paid higher than average, that's because the federal government pays way above market rates for low-level staff like receptionists and janitors, which skews it up. For people like IT workers, research scientists, and engineers, federal salaries are often far less than comparable private sector positions.. especially the case for new grads because of the federal government's love of seniority-based compensation (which is not nearly as much of a thing in the private sector... a new computing grad will actually typically be offered MORE money than an old-timer because they have all the new knowledge straight out of school).
It's all well and dandy to say that a manager in the bureaucracy shouldn't be making X amount money, but if cutting their salaries results in any skilled person being capable of getting a much higher paid job in the private sector.. then guess what, all the good people will work for the private sector and the government is left with the bottom of the barrel.
As an aside, here's an example of how federal pay policy is screwed up: I'm a 21 year old IT employee with the feds, who just got hired a year ago. As such I've only received one seniority grid pay increase.
The janitor in my wing of the building has been working the job for 25 years... and because of that seniority, he actually gets paid more than me.
Yep, a janitor, gets paid more than a IT professional, despite being far less valuable in the job market. Solely because he's been working there for longer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
PS is still bigger than it was when Tories took over (257k compared to 243k in 2005).
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That's a 5.8% increase from 2005. The population has grown 10% since 2005. With efficiencies, that would normally be reasonable. However, the problem is that the Harper admin has considerably increased the workload of the civil service beyond what would normally happen with growth. Take the CRA for example. With the massive number of boutique vote-grabbing tax credits the Harper government has introduced, the amount of work required to assess a tax return has increased. A couple years ago the Harper government ordered the CRA to significantly expand its enforcement to cramp down on tax evasion... but gave them literally no money to hire more staff to do so (I believe this was finally fixed in the 2015 budget).
Efficiency measures can increase the amount of work a single person-hour can accomplish but it's not an unlimited source, there's only so much that can be done.
Quote:
Originally Posted by acottawa
I think what sun life is hoping is the government will be more willing to pay for class A office space downtown
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They've already signalled that the in future, they want to focus on employment in the central area more. It's a known fact in the job market that downtown work locations are generally more well-liked among employees, especially among millennials. Downtown office space is more expensive but it can help attract employees. There's a reason why so many corporations always pay the premium for downtown offices.
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