Canadian Job Market
Earlier this week, the parliamentary budget watchdog in Canada said that the “job reductions within the bureaucracy, as presently planned, won't be enough to meet austerity targets the Conservative government has established.” Budgetary plans for next year and the future were also reviewed. It was found that by fiscal 2014 an anticipated shrinkage for payrolls is expected by 6,000 positions, to 365,000. However this reduction isn’t even expected to solve all matters since it is anticipated that it will only generate “just one-third of an annual C$1.8bn (US$1.83bn) in savings the government booked in its 2010 budget.”
Government Spending Plans
At the same time it seems that expenditure on fiscal for next year is likely to escalate C$1.7bn. Meanwhile, spending plans introduced by individual government departments and agencies indicate outlays on personnel in fiscal 2012 is set to increase C$1.7bn to over C$38bn.
As Kevin Page wrote in his report, “given the apparent difference in direction between the freeze targets established in Budget 2010 and [spending plans], parliamentarians may wish to seek additional information from the government on the strategy and plans to achieve the operational savings along with implications by department.” The way Page reached this conclusion was through a review of “spending estimates outlined by individual departments.”
Canada’s Budget in the Past
In the past, Canada’s budget has also responded to climate changes. For example, last year, it focused on being somewhat earnest, implementing budgetary freezes and growth caps on defense expenditure that looked set to “extract C$17.5 billion in savings over a five year period.” The 2011 budget that was re-introduced last week saw a pledge of C$4-billion additional cuts per year to “ensure Canada, a Group of Seven economy, returns to budget balance in fiscal 2015, or a year earlier than originally projected.”
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