Civil service jobs could be axed in budget: sources
Posted Apr 6, 2010 04:58:50 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Finance Minister Graham Steele will table his 2010-2011 budget this afternoon at Province House and it could contain some significant job cuts.
There’s been strong hints the Dexter government will raise the HST by two percentage points as part of its four-year plan to balance the budget.
Now, government sources indicate the budget will announce a 10 per cent reduction in the size of the provincial civil service, to be achieved through attrition and retirement over the next four years.
The elimination of about 1000 jobs will save the government about $65 million a year.
Nova Scotia Government Employees Union president Joan Jessome says she has mixed feelings about the plan, but is generally not impressed.
“There’s a couple of ways to look at this,” she said. “The government is saying it’ll be through attrition and there will be no involuntary layoffs. That’s the positive side of it. But the services that those people provide, and those people left behind in the workplace to carry the workload is certainly not a positive.”
Jessome says civil servants will be disappointed to hear news of the job cuts – and she disputes the government’s claim the losses will have little bearing on the quality of service provided.
The finance minister will table the budget at 2 p.m. today.
