Population of the federal public service by executive level

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About the data

When reading the table below, the following information applies:

  • Source of information: Pay System as of March 31 of each year.
  • The federal public service consists of 2 population segments: the core public administration and separate agencies.
  • Departments and agencies in the core public administration are named in schedules I and IV of the Financial Administration Act. The Treasury Board is the employer of this segment of the federal public service.
  • Separate agencies are named in Schedule V of the act. Separate agencies conduct their own negotiations or set their own classification levels for their employees.
  • Included in this information are:
    • active employees of all employment tenures (indeterminate, term, casual and student)
    • Governor in Council appointees
    • deputy ministers
    • federal judges
  • Excluded from this information are:
    • inactive employees (i.e., employees on leave without pay)
    • ministers’ exempt staff
    • employees locally engaged outside of Canada
    • RCMP Regular Force members
    • RCMP Civilian members
    • Canadian Forces members
  • Population counts for the following separate agencies are not included because their employee information is not available in the Pay System:
    • Canadian Security Intelligence Service
    • National Capital Commission
    • Canada Investment and Savings
    • Canadian Forces Non-Public Funds
    • Security Intelligence Review Committee (before 2010)
  • Data on executives in the federal public service include employees from the Executive group as well as executive equivalents within the separate agencies.
  • Executive equivalents in separate agencies were adjusted in 2016 and as a result, historical years have been adjusted according to this grouping and may not reflect previous figures provided in historical Demographic snapshot of Canada’s public service reports and Clerk of the Privy Council’s Annual Reports to the Prime Minister on the Public Service of Canada.
Population of the federal public service by executive level
Executive Level Year
2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023
Core public administration
EX - Executives 5,441 5,565 5,538 5,179 4,995 4,958 5,035 5,094 5,296 5,626 5,922 6,421 6,870 7,320
EX-01
2,959 3,050 3,039 2,794 2,669 2,620 2,632 2,644 2,750 2,900 3,074 3,315 3,573 3,823
EX-02
1,271 1,287 1,271 1,208 1,190 1,209 1,244 1,289 1,307 1,392 1,467 1,618 1,734 1,841
EX-03
885 911 901 880 847 848 868 863 909 996 1,028 1,112 1,181 1,269
EX-04
228 221 227 207 200 206 202 208 232 234 241 256 271 270
EX-05
98 96 100 90 89 75 89 90 98 104 112 120 111 117
Non-EX 211,155 211,659 206,490 195,337 190,335 190,607 192,319 194,597 203,016 214,689 225,254 239,318 247,439 263,478
Total 216,596 217,224 212,028 200,516 195,330 195,565 197,354 199,691 208,312 220,315 231,176 245,739 254,309 270,798
Separate agencies
EX - Executives 1,330 1,384 1,368 1,364 1,382 1,382 1,379 1,386 1,382 1,444 1,454 1,551 1,636 1,749
EX-01
649 661 656 654 673 652 652 659 639 678 668 684 727 770
EX-02
337 367 356 350 372 381 387 400 415 429 442 498 518 553
EX-03
234 249 247 246 232 228 228 223 231 214 227 239 269 294
EX-04
56 59 65 65 62 73 67 63 61 77 68 78 74 79
EX-05
54 48 44 49 43 48 45 41 36 46 49 52 48 53
Non-EX 65,054 63,744 64,696 60,937 60,426 60,087 60,246 61,619 63,877 66,224 67,820 72,311 80,012 84,700
Total 66,384 65,128 66,064 62,301 61,808 61,469 61,625 63,005 65,259 67,668 69,274 73,862 81,648 86,449
Federal public service
EX - Executives 6,771 6,949 6,906 6,543 6,377 6,340 6,414 6,480 6,678 7,070 7,376 7,972 8,506 9,069
EX-01
3,608 3,711 3,695 3,448 3,342 3,272 3,284 3,303 3,389 3,578 3,742 3,999 4,300 4,593
EX-02
1,608 1,654 1,627 1,558 1,562 1,590 1,631 1,689 1,722 1,821 1,909 2,116 2,252 2,394
EX-03
1119 1160 1148 1126 1079 1076 1096 1086 1140 1210 1,255 1,351 1,450 1,563
EX-04
284 280 292 272 262 279 269 271 293 311 309 334 345 349
EX-05
152 144 144 139 132 123 134 131 134 150 161 172 159 170
Non-EX 276,209 275,403 271,186 256,274 250,761 250,694 252,565 256,216 266,893 280,913 293,074 311,629 327,451 348,178
Total 282,980 282,352 278,092 262,817 257,138 257,034 258,979 262,696 273,571 287,983 300,450 319,601 335,957 357,247

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Population of the federal public service by executive level
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These data present population counts by executive level for the federal public service (all departments and agencies governed by the Financial Administration Act (FAA) Schedules I, IV and V) from to .

Glossary of key terms

To assist you with your analysis of federal public service human resources data, we have compiled a glossary of key terms that are used in many of the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer’s (OCHRO) demographic snapshots and reports. This glossary has been developed to help provide a common language across OCHRO’s demographic snapshots and reports.

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