Federal public servants are paid an average of $125,300 per year including salary, benefits, and overtime, says Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Yves Giroux, who noted the wage has risen significantly over the past fiscal year.
Salary raises accounted for about 70 percent of the overall increase in full-time employee compensation average, while higher raises among a handful of federal departments and agencies were mainly responsible for the increase in the average wage.
Giroux’s office said that about 60 percent of the growth in salary spending per full-time worker was due to pay raises for employees within the Canada Revenue Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, and the Canada Border Services Agency.
The PBO acknowledged that the large average pay increase for full-time federal employees is largely due to “several collective agreements with large bargaining groups” that Ottawa signed in 2020 and 2021.
However, the budget office added that more similar agreements in the near future could further increase federal spending on employee compensation.
“The Government is currently in the process of negotiating with 26 of 28 bargaining groups across the public service,” the PBO wrote. “Some of the demands include salary increases to account for higher inflation.”
Personnel Spending
The PBO also said in its report that the federal government’s overall personnel spending—which accounts for roughly 60 percent of the government’s operating costs—increased “significantly” over the last two fiscal years.This increase was due largely to one-time expenditures “such as spending related to actuarial deficiencies.” The PBO added that Ottawa’s spending on personnel increased by just under 31 percent over the past two fiscal years.
“This represents average annual growth of 14.4 per cent, well above the historical average growth of 3.4 per cent per year observed over 2007-08 to 2019-20,” the PBO wrote.