The post-secondary campaign, which is typically the biggest and most important of the government’s various recruitment campaigns, began last week as departments issued the latest wave of affected letters to hundreds of workers across the country. The Conservatives’ three rounds of spending cuts and plan to eliminate 19,200 jobs have driven hiring in the public service to the lowest level in more than a decade.
The recruitment campaign, run by the Public Service Commission, kicked off with only four notices for candidates posted on the government’s jobs.gc.ca website. All are for entry level positions as analysts, economists and program officers, with starting salaries ranging from $51,764 to $61,570. More notices could be posted before the campaign closes Oct. 5.
Graduates can also apply for other jobs on the government website. Also, the annual campaign to recruit policy leaders for mid-level jobs, aimed at graduates of masters and PhD programs, will begin in late October.
The Public Service Commission is unable to say how many recruits could be hired. So far, Natural Resources Canada is looking for six analysts, while 14 other departments estimate they will have eight openings for candidates from the accelerated economist program. Treasury Board wants to create a pool of qualified candidates for possible jobs as temporary or full-time analysts in program, policy and expenditure management. Canada Border Services Agency wants a similar pool for program managers.
It’s a far cry from the hiring spree for much of the past decade when bringing in thousands of college and university graduates every year was a priority for the public service, which is undergoing a massive generational turnover as baby boomers retire. Federal jobs are always in big demand when the economy is wobbly and interest in the public service was running high, with upwards of 800,000 applications last year.
The commission also decided to carry over the pool of nearly 8,000 graduates who qualified for jobs in last year’s recruitment campaign for five “career streams” — information technology, health sciences (mostly nurses and psychologists) business and social scientists, science and program delivery and support. That pool wasn’t used and managers will be able to recruit from it until December 2013.
But the mixed message of hiring new, young talent for entry jobs while laying off thousands of other workers isn’t lost on the grads the government hopes to attract. Some say the conflicting signals will deter top candidates from applying.
David Zussman, Jarislowsky Chair in public sector management at the University of Ottawa, said students still seem keen on working in the public service but they worry about job prospects.
Departments can’t hire new graduates until they have checked whether surplus employees qualify. The number of workers on the commission’s priority list has been climbing since departments began issuing affected letters — about 23,000 have been sent so far — and is expected to grow. There are now about 2,410 people on the priority list, including 759 who are surplus.
“So they’re out recruiting while laying people off,” said Debi Daviau, vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada who was among the 1,700 public servants who received “affected letters” last week warning her job is on the line.
She argued the Quebec student protests show today’s university students are much more “disgruntled” than previous generations because today’s jobs and working conditions aren’t what they used to be. The Conservatives are also taking aim at the pensions and benefits that have historically been a draw for those seeking secure public service jobs.
But senior bureaucrats argue departments must avoid a repeat of the Liberals’ massive downsizing in the 1990s when hiring full-time workers all but stopped and the public service was left with big age, skill and occupational gaps that caused succession planning problems and other headaches down the road.
In her last report, former commission president Maria Barrados warned that managers had to carefully plan for the downsizing, which is on the scale of the cuts in the 1990s, and continue targeted recruitment and hiring to ensure they end up with people with the right skills to do the job.
Privy Council Clerk Wayne Wouters, who is Canada’s top bureaucrat, drove the same message in his annual report to the prime minister.
“We must continue to develop the competencies needed for an evolving public service,” he said. “Professional development should not stop during times of fiscal restraint and during the months ahead our recruitment will be targeted to fill key skills gaps and carried out with a view to the broader long-term needs of the institution. But the reality is there will be fewer jobs.”
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: KATHRYN MAY
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