Canada Revenue Agency cutting up to 280 jobs, mainly in national capital region

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) national headquarters in Ottawa on Friday, June 28, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) is cutting up to 280 more employees this spring, the latest announcement of job cuts at the federal department over the past six months.

The agency confirms to CTV News Ottawa employees were informed on Thursday that CRA was proceeding with “workforce adjustments,” with the job reductions mostly impacting positions in Ottawa and Gatineau.

“In recent years, a number of factors have impacted the CRA’s budget, including the sunsetting of COVID program funding, which has required the CRA to re-examine the size of its workforce,” the CRA said in a statement Friday morning.

“These adjustments will lead to up to 280 employees leaving the agency. We will be activating voluntary departure programs and where required, retention processes. These reductions mostly impact internal services and are mainly situated in the National Capital Region.”

The workforce adjustments at the CRA will impact several branches, including the appeals branch, the compliance programs branch, human resources branch, legal services and the service, innovation and integration branch.

• Size of federal public service drops by 9,800 jobs

A Canada Revenue Agency spokesperson says the CRA “must operate within its budget.”

“The financial challenges facing the CRA have been driven by the end of temporary program funding, government-wide savings initiatives, and a shift in operational pressures,” the spokesperson said in an email.

The Union of Taxation Employees is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to impose an “immediate moratorium on job cuts” at the Canada Revenue Agency. In a statement, the union says the workforce adjustment at CRA is “yet another blow in a relentless series of cuts that, since fall 2024, have gutted over 3,000 jobs at CRA.”

“These successive cuts hit our members hard, but they also greatly impact the Canadian population and businesses,” Marc Brière, national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, said in a statement.

“With every position eliminated, processing delays grow longer, calls go unanswered, files pile up, and citizens are left behind in uncertainty. Those who remain are being pushed beyond their limits—expected to do more with less, while working under mounting stress and growing job insecurity.”

According to the union, this is the fifth announcement of job cuts or contracts not being renewed at the Canada Revenue Agency since December. In November, CRA announced the contracts of 600 term employees would not be renewed. The union says 450 positions were eliminated in April, and the contracts for 1,300 employees were not renewed in CRA call centres in May.

Brière says the CRA’s workforce adjustments announced on Thursday will be in 10 “internal services” at the agency - “that‘s major.”

“They might not give direct service to the population, but they help the CRA and the operations in the field and the regions to operate, to give them service,” Brière told CTV News Ottawa Friday morning.

The head of the union warns the recent job reductions at the Canadian Revenue Agency, particularly in the CRA call centre, will increase waiting times and impact services.

“It‘s mathematic. If you let go of thousands of people, I mean the service is going to be impacted. The CRA and the government may say otherwise, but it is absolutely ridiculous to say that,” Brière said.

“Already this week, after days only of having less people on the lines (in the CRA call centre), I’m hearing a lot of people already complaining that they are swamped, and the summer is coming. During the summer, there’s a peak season for self-employed Canadians and people coming for benefits, so I expect the call waiting at the CRA just to explode like it did last summer.”

A Canada Revenue Agency spokesperson said that as the agency reexamines the size of the workforce, it has “remained focused on minimizing the impacts on both employees and services to Canadians.”

“The CRA will continue to put Canadians at the centre of how they provide the services and to look for ways to make digital services faster and easier to use,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Most recently, improvements were made to Canada.ca and within an individual’s CRA account, giving taxpayers more options to self-serve and to find the information they need without having to call the Agency.”

New statistics from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows the number of employees at the Canada Revenue Agency dropped from 59,155 employees in March 2024 to 52,449 employees as of March 31, 2025.

The message sent to Canada Revenue Agency employees said that “further analysis is currently underway” within the agency, adding “given the amount of work underway, we don’t anticipate any new (workforce adjustments) announcements before the fall.”

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney released his mandate letter to Canada’s Ministry, outlining seven priorities. The seventh priority on the list was, “Spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.”

The Liberal Party platform released during the federal election campaign said the party is committed to “capping, not cutting public service employment.” The party promised a “comprehensive review of government spending in order to increase the federal government‘s productivity.”