Dynamics of the staffing system 2016-2017

Overall hiring into the public service

Overall hiring into the public service
Long description
Hiring into the public service by tenure for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Total hiring activities into the public service: 47,881 (up 4.2%)
Tenure Hiring activities Year-over-year change (%)
Indeterminate 6,227 37.4%
Term 10,988 16.9%
Casual 18,407 -8.8%
Student 12,259 3.5%
Total 47,881 4.2%

Indeterminate: Employment for an indefinite duration
Term: Employment for a fixed duration
Casual: Employment for a maxium duration of 90 days per calendar year in a given organization
Student: Employment through one of the Student Employment Programs

Hiring by tenure and fiscal year
Hiring activity over the past 10 years.
Tenure 2007 to 2008 2008 to 2009 2009 to 2010 2010 to 2011 2011 to 2012 2012 to 2013 2013 to 2014 2014 to 2015 2015 to 2016 2016 to 2017
Indeterminate 10,579 12,705 10,718 7,248 5,343 1,979 2,594 3,904 4,533 6,227
Term 11,259 11,039 11,188 8,740 8,111 4,804 5,801 7,364 9,397 10,988
Casual 19,296 18,699 19,134 17,935 16,275 14,359 16,896 18,609 20,187 18,407
Student 13,600 14,247 14,659 13,836 13,099 9,561 10,386 11,146 11,848 12,259
Public Service Employment Act population as of March 31, 2017
Tenure Population Percentage of population Year-over-year change (%)
Indeterminate 173,582 85.6% 2.3%
Term 15,074 7.4% 12.0%
Casual 8,767 4.3% -6.2%
Student 5,289 2.6% 10.0%
Total 202,712 100% Up 2.8%

Where are the jobs

Where are the jobs
Long description
Hiring and population by region for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Region Hires PSEA population
British Columbia 2,914 17,089
Alberta 2,229 11,024
Saskatchewan 923 4,869
Manitoba 1,001 6,790
Ontario (except NCR) 4,135 25,498
National Capital Region (NCR) 19,320 91,231
Quebec (except NCR) 3,787 21,452
New Brunswick 1,501 7,468
Nova Scotia 1,945 8,902
Prince Edward Island 497 1,840
Newfoundland and Labrador 718 3,176
Yukon 45 287
Northwest Territories 79 423
Nunavut 59 249
Outside Canada 71 951
Top 5 occupational groups by hiring activities for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
There were 90 hires to the Executive Group, accounting for 0.5% of all external hires.
Occupational group % of all indeterminate and term hiring
CR - Clerical and Regulatory 25.7
PM - Programme Administration 13.9
AS - Administrative Services 12.6
EC - Economics and Social Science Services 7.4
EG - Engineering and Scientific Support 3.3
Top 5 hiring organizations — indeterminate and term hiring activities for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Organization Number of indeterminate and term hiring activities % of all indeterminate and term hiring Indeterminate and term population
Employment and Social Development Canada 3,098 18.0% 22,763
Department of National Defence (public service employees) 1,939 11.3% 22,199
Fisheries and Oceans Canada 1,271 7.4% 9,685
Public Services and Procurement Canada 1,055 6.1% 11,869
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada 936 5.4% 5,793

Who is applying

Who is applying
Long description

There were 2,403 advertisements open to the public. 247,226 people made 501,913 applications to these advertisements. These people may have applied to more than one advertisement. Note that a single advertisement can lead to multiple hires. 

Applicants to the public service by mechanism and program for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Program Number of applicants
General recruitment 185,723
Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) 52,658
Research Affiliate Program (RAP) 3,384
Post-Secondary Recruitment (PSR) 21,105
Recruitment of Policy Leaders (RPL) 1,989
Internal and external advertisements for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Breakdown of advertisements Number of advertisements %
External advertisements (open to the public) 2,403 32.2%
Internal advertisements (open to public service employees) 5,063 67.8%
Number of advertisements open to the public by fiscal year
Number of advertisements open to the public over the past 10 years
2007 to 2008 2008 to 2009 2009 to 2010 2010 to 2011 2011 to 2012 2012 to 2013 2013 to 2014 2014 to 2015 2015 to 2016 2016 to 2017
5,146 4,995 3,463 3,128 1,936 1,175 1,899 2,131 2,712 2,403

There were 8,712 applications from Canadian Armed Forces members and veterans.

Employment equity
Long description
Applicants to advertised processes for fiscal year 2016 to 2017, by employment equity designated group, compared to 2011 workforce availability
  Persons with disabilities Aboriginal peoples Members of visible minorities Women
Applicants 2.7% 3.3% 22.1% 53.4%
2011 workforce availability 4.4% 3.4% 13.0% 52.5%
First official language of applicants to the public service for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
First official language Percentage of applicants to the public service
English 72.7%
French 27.3%
Proportion of applicants to the public service by home region for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Regional distribution of applicants
Region Percentage of applicants
British Columbia 8.2%
Alberta 8.8%
Saskatchewan 2.7%
Manitoba 3.1%
Ontario (except NCR) 24.2%
National Capital Region (NCR) 22.0%
Quebec (except NCR) 20.1%
New Brunswick 3.3%
Nova Scotia 3.2%
Prince Edward Island 1.1%
Newfoundland and Labrador 1.4%
Yukon 0.1%
Northwest Territories 0.2%
Nunavut 0.1%
Outside Canada 1.5%

Who is being hired

Who is being hired
Long description
Percentage of indeterminate and of term hires between the ages of 20 and 34, by fiscal year
Fiscal year % of indeterminate hires between the ages of 20 and 34 % of term hires between the ages of 20 and 34
2014 to 2015 56.6% 54.4%
2015 to 2016 53.5% 54.0%
2016 to 2017 57.5% 53.6%

According to the 2016 Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey, 31.1% of the labour force is between the ages of 20 and 34.

Exclusion to language requirements

The vast majority of employees meet the language requirements of their bilingual position within the established time limit for a non-imperative appointment. There were only 6 non-compliant cases during the 2016 to 2017 fiscal year.

Average age of hires for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Tenure Average age
Indeterminate 35
Term 36
Casual 40
Student 22

The overall average age of all persons hired (indeterminate, term, student, and casual) during fiscal year 2016 to 2017 was 34. This age has remained relatively constant for a quarter of a century.

Linguistic requirements of the position for term and indeterminate hires for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Linguistic requirements Percentage of positions
English 58.5%
French 5.6%
English or French 9.8%
Bilingual 26.1%

26% of hires to jobs in the National Capital Region are of individuals from outside of the region.

Veterans and persons with a priority entitlement

Veterans and persons with a priority entitlement
Long description

Supporting our veterans

There were 492 appointments made under the Veterans Hiring Act: 214 priority appointments of medically released Canadian Armed Forces members, plus 278 appointments under the mobility and preference provisions.

843 individuals with a priority entitlement were appointed to positions in the public service, consistent with historical levels of priority hiring.

Active priority entitlements, by type, as of March 31, 2017
Priority type Active priority entitlements
Medically released CAF (attributable to service) 223
Medically released CAF (not attributable to service) 274
Medically discharged RCMP 13
Disabled employee 37
Leave of absence 550
Lay-off 102
Surplus 125
Relocation of spouse 352
Surviving spouse or common-law partner 2
Reinstatement to higher level 96
Total 1,774

Students and graduates

Students and graduates
Long description
Employment Equity (EE) - Percentage of student applicants.
Distribution of applicants to the newly redesigned Federal Student Work Experience Program application process.
EE designated group Percentage of student applicants
Persons with disabilities 2.6%
Aboriginal peoples 3.2%
Members of visible minorities 29.0%
Women 61.1%

Did you know…

  • 16% of all indeterminate and term hires had experience in a federal student recruitment program within the last 10 years.
  • 69% of these were hired to the same organization where they acquired their student experience.
  • 93% were under the age of 35.
Hiring into the public service by student recruitment program for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Program Hiring activities Year-over-year change (%)
Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) 7,282 3.4%
Post-Secondary CO-OP/Internship Program (CO-OP) 4,646 5.2%
Research Affiliate Program (RAP) 331 -15.1%
Total 12,259 3.5%

FSWEP - The Federal Student Work Experience Program provides work experience for full-time secondary school, CEGEP, college, technical institute and university students.

CO-OP - The Post-Secondary CO-OP/Internship Program provides practical work experience for post-secondary students enrolled in a co-op or internship program.

RAP - The Research Affiliate Program provides work experience for post-secondary students to help develop specific knowledge with actual ongoing research operations in the federal public service.

Hiring into the public service by graduate recruitment program for fiscal year 2016 to 2017
Program Hiring activities Year-over-year change (%)
Post-Secondary Recruitment (PSR) 771 35.0%
Recruitment of Policy Leaders (RPL) 9 -25.0%
Total 780 33.8%

End notes

Dynamics of the staffing system

Unless stated otherwise, all data presented reflects 2016-2017 population and staffing activities to and within organizations subject to the Public Service Employment Act. This does not include separate agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Parks Canada.

Additional data and supporting documentation are available on the Open Data Portal.

Where are the jobs

Top 5 occupational group hires are based on the total number of indeterminate and term hires for 2016-2017.

Due to the implementation of the Phoenix pay system, some records were missing a regional indicator and are therefore not included in the breakdown. Regional information is unknown for 8,657 hires and for 1,463 individuals in the Public Service Employment Act population. These unknown cases need to be included for the hiring and population regional breakdown to add up to the respective totals: 47,881 and 202,712.

Overall population number for organizations may be subject to change.

Who is applying

The redesigned Federal Student Work Experience Program (FSWEP) application process came into effect on January 31, 2017. Applicants were required to register in the new system even if they had already applied to the previous campaign. Due to a change in data capture methods in 2016-2017, year-over-year comparisons of the number of applicants is not possible for FSWEP.

The number of unique applicants for each recruitment mechanism will not equal 247,226, as individuals may apply to more than one recruitment program.

Employment Equity: The percentages of members of visible minorities, Aboriginal peoples and persons with disabilities are based on applicants’ self-declaration in the Public Service Resourcing System (PSRS) to an indeterminate position or a term position of 3 months or more. The percentage of women is derived from the gender profile in PSRS and is calculated using the total number of applicants who indicated their gender.

Regional distribution of applicants excludes applicants from the redesigned Federal Student Work Experience Program application process.

The 2011 workforce availability for the public service was provided by the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

Who is being hired?

Due to the implementation of the Phoenix pay system, the linguistic position requirements of 32% of hires (5,541) were “unknown” for 2016-2017, compared with 2.7% (374) in 2015-2016.

Veterans and persons with a priority entitlement

Effective in 2016-2017, the number of priority appointments changed to include the following persons with a priority entitlement:

  • those who were appointed to certain public service organizations not subject to the Public Service Employment Act (PSEA)
  • those who are eligible for a reinstatement priority entitlement after having been appointed to a lower level position

In previous years, these numbers were captured under “Other Removal” and “Change of Priority Type.”

A full description of the 11 types of priority entitlements is available. There are 2 types of priority entitlements for surplus employees: regulatory and statutory priority entitlements.

Students and graduates

The figures shown here for graduate recruitment programs include external term and indeterminate hiring only.

Due to a change in data capture methods, employment equity information for student applicants is reported for the 30,250 students who applied via the redesigned Federal Student Work Experience Program application process, which came into effect on January 31, 2017. All employment equity information is derived from these student applications.

The number of Post-Secondary Recruitment (PSR) hires for 2015-2016 has been revised from the figures previously reported in the Public Service Commission of Canada 2015-2016 Annual Report. There were 571 term and indeterminate PSR hires in 2015-2016.

To obtain additional information, please contact:

The Public Service Commission of Canada
22 Eddy Street, Gatineau, Quebec
K1A 0M7

cfp.infocom.psc@cfp-psc.gc.ca

Twitter: @PSCofCanada

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