Statistics Canada to cut 850 jobs, 12 per cent of executive team

Signage marks the Statistics Canada offices in Ottawa on July 21, 2010. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says it will be cutting around 850 of its staff along with 12 per cent of its executive team.

Carter Mann, spokesperson for the national statistical agency, said Statistics Canada will inform affected employees within the next two weeks.

Data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows 7,274 people worked at Statistics Canada as of March 31, 2025, and 99 of them were part of the executive team.

Several departments, including Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Environment and Climate Change and Employment and Social Development, told their staff late last year that news on job cuts would be shared this month.

Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said workforce adjustment notices have been issued to 3,274 workers, including 940 of the union’s members.

O’Reilly said it’s still not clear which programs will be affected.

The union said it’s concerned about the job cuts coming as the agency prepares for a census in May.

“It’s a really dark day for us here and I think for Canadians,” O’Reilly said. “StatCan produces data that really underpins all the government decision-making and is used by businesses and communities.

“I have real concerns about this also causing more generational damage to the data that Canadians rely on every day.”

Ottawa is looking to cut program spending and administration costs by about $60 billion over the next five years through its “comprehensive expenditure review.”

The latest federal budget said the exercise will involve “restructuring operations and consolidating internal services.” It said it also will deploy workforce adjustments and attrition to return the size of the public service to “a more sustainable level.”

O’Reilly said the union has been informed that job cuts will soon be announced by Shared Services Canada, and hundreds of staff members are likely to be affected.

“They’re sort of the backbone of the IT infrastructure of Canada and the federal government, and they do a lot of work in cybersecurity. And to see cuts there also, it seems like we’re basically hollowing out all these key underlying services that Canadians and the federal government rely on,” O’Reilly said.

Nick Wells, a spokesperson for Shared Services Canada, said the agency 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,” he said.

The government plans to cut the number of public service jobs by about 40,000 from a peak of 368,000 in 2023-24. About 10,000 jobs have been eliminated already.

The plan will see a reduction of 1,000 executive positions over the next two years, and a 20 per cent cut to spending on management and consulting services over three years.

The federal government has sent letters with information on its planned early retirement program to almost 68,000 public servants who may be eligible.

The government says it’s trying to boost the rate of attrition and avoid cutting younger workers by offering a voluntary program allowing workers to retire earlier without incurring a pension penalty.

The recent federal budget said the government intends to implement the one-year early retirement program as soon as this month.

Alex Silas, national executive vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, said cutting hundreds of Statistics Canada workers puts the quality, accuracy and timeliness of data collection at risk and “impacts everyone who relies on this information to plan, respond, and make decisions.”

“It’s time for the government to be clear about the impacts of these cuts because slashing public service jobs undermines the critical services communities rely on,” Silas said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 13, 2026.

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press