The federal payroll will top $50 billion this year, says the Parliamentary Budget Office. Analysts counted 391,000 federal employees..“Government spending on public servant salaries and benefits is forecast to climb to almost $55 billion this year or about $130,000 per full-time employee,” said a Budget Office report Supplementary Estimates (B). “The cost drivers of personnel spending are the number of personnel and their level of compensation..According to Blacklock's Reporter, the number of federal employees since 2015 had increased “from roughly 342,000 to 391,000” or about 2.3% a year on average, wrote analysts. “The hiring restraint of 2006 to 2015 was more than fully offset by growth over the past seven years,” said Supplementary..The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said the report depicted a “ballooning bureaucracy.” Parliament has not balanced a budget since 2007..“Struggling Canadian taxpayers cannot afford more bureaucrats with bigger salaries,” Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Federation, said in a statement. “It’s not fair to ask Canadians who lost their jobs or took pay cuts during the pandemic to pay higher taxes.”.The Department of Finance has described all federal spending as economic stimulus. “It does find its way either into the pocketbook of a consumer or into the income statement of a business,” Nicholas Leswick, assistant deputy finance minister, told a May 12, 2021 hearing of the House of Commons finance committee..“Is that the department’s position, that all government spending is stimulus?” asked Conservative MP Ed Fast (Abbotsford, B.C.). “Yes,” replied Leswick..“All government spending feeds through into some real economic activity,” said Leswick. “So, I mean, just basic national income accounting would suggest that government spending would feed through and provide some sort of fiscal impulse into the economy.”.“Some more, some less, depending on the type of government spending,” said Leswick. “It was just to try and exemplify that a dollar spent by government feeds through into the economy in some way.”.The Treasury Board in a 2017 report identified a dramatic increase in the number of six-figure executives. “Between 2000 and 2017 the federal public service executive workforce grew by 56%” wrote staff..“During the same period the overall federal public service grew by 24%,” said the report. Pay for executives averaged $134,000 a year. Salaries for other government staff averaged $73,000.
