Government Operations Committee on April 17th, 2007

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

I understand.

[Nicole Jauvin]

We have information from the census, so we know the labour force is a few years younger. But that's the total labour force, and it includes my son, who is 18 and working in a restaurant. I'm not sure you could compare that to an executive in the public service. But by and large we can say with confidence that the public service is older than the labour force.

With respect to the private sector, specifically, I would only have an intuitive answer. My sense is that it's not that different. Basically you're looking at executives in one area and executives in another area and there's no reason for there to be a difference.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

All right. How about job stability? How is the public sector different from the private sector?

[Nicole Jauvin]

In terms of job stability, what happens in the private sector is that essentially you have either a contract or a limited tenure in a company and people tend to be a little bit more mobile. In the public sector there is less mobility in and out because of the pension arrangements. It's very difficult to move out into the private sector after a number of years in the public service. It's not attractive to do so. Some people do it because of course the salaries are much higher, so that becomes something else to weigh.

The other thing I would say is in the public service I think it's a well-kept secret that most people just love their jobs and they love what they do, so nothing really compares in the private sector. It's a personal choice. You do find that people stay for a long time.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

When your colleagues were here last month, there was some discussion about the impact of the public sector pension plan on the demographics of your workforce and whether in fact the attractiveness of the pension plan relative to the private sector actually kept people in your workforce longer, much longer than they would be kept in a private sector job. The question, then, some private sector analysts have is do you have a workforce that's constantly renewing itself, or do you just have people who are getting older?

[Nicole Jauvin]

I think you have to look at the executives and the rest of the public service. In terms of attraction, if you're in it for the money you won't be working in the public service if you're an executive, because the EX-1s are at parity with the private sector, but as soon as you go above the EX-1 level, which is the first entry of executives, the discrepancy, the gap, becomes wider, wider, and wider in terms of salary. If you're in it for the money, you wouldn't necessarily stay in the public sector.

[Garth Turner, Conservative, Halton, ON]

Is that a good thing for our senior managers, though, to have that wage gap? Has any thought been given to the option of compensating your senior levels better without as much of a pension benefit?

[Nicole Jauvin]

Obviously this is a decision for ministers to make, but at the end of the day there's a balance between how much is acceptable to retain people and how much is required to retain the best people. I think that balance, by and large, has been respected.

The government in the last several years has introduced the concept of at-risk pay, where you don't automatically earn all of your pay, but you have to be judged or be evaluated on a portion of your pay. That has given a little bit of a private sector flavour to the arrangements, but there's no question the salaries don't compare the higher you go. By and large, I don't think that's a huge issue. As I said—

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Could we get some numbers on that? It would be good for us to get numbers on that if you have them.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Madam Chair, do you mean numbers on the salary gaps?

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

The amounts, yes.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Oh yes, absolutely, we will do this. There is a committee that advises the government on senior-level compensation that does a lot of very interesting work with respect to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Can we also get numbers on who gets the at-risk pay and how much of the at-risk part they get? Do they get it all the time? How does that work? It would be nice to have some evaluation of that, as well.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Okay, that would certainly be doable.

[The Chair, Liberal, Diane Marleau]

Thank you.

I'd like to go to Monsieur Nadeau.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Ellis, Ms. Jauvin, Mr. Ladouceur, good afternoon.

We met people and organizations that gave us their opinions on the situation. I am somewhat surprised to note that there are very divergent statements and comments on the issue of demographics in the federal public service.

Earlier, you said that you were not expecting a crisis, that there was no sign of anything of the kind. However, you are vigilant, you are aware that there is an upcoming situation due to the average age of public servants and the new generation that must be recruited. To this effect, we saw documents that said that the federal public service is employing an older-than-average age group, at least at the higher levels.

What are your comments and your worries regarding this situation that you are watching so closely?

[Nicole Jauvin]

This is not a crisis, because we are managing it. Of course, if we let things slide, we might not be pleased with the results. In any case, there is no sign of a crisis. I think that we have a very clear view of what is going on and of what to expect. I also think that we are well equipped to manage the situation.

In fact, we could consider this an opportunity. If we can rightly say that the nature of the work done by the public service has undergone great changes, we can also say that the workers' needs are changing as well. In any case, those who are about to retire are not necessarily interested in undergoing training to learn entirely new ways of doing things.

Let me give you an example. I visited a Service Canada Centre in Regina. As you may know, these people have completely changed their approach. Previously, people would answer the telephone, and when they dealt with the client, they concentrated on a single problem. Now, with Service Canada, the employee has to deal with a host of questions or problems raised by the clients. It is like a shopping centre. Some employees stand and wait for clients to arrive so that they can ask the clients what they can do for them. Next, the employees bring the clients to the places where they can get answers to all their questions.

I asked a lady employed by that centre to tell me what she thought of it. I reminded her that when she first came to the public service, she sat behind a desk and did her calculations manually, and that her current job was entirely different. She answered that she was going to retire in six months, that she had accumulated all the needed years of service and that it was time for her to retire. In fact, she was not pleased with the new way of doing things. On the other hand, there are others who—

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

Let me interrupt you, Ms. Jauvin. We must say that Service Canada is a rather exceptional case. Public servants are expected to answer technical questions regarding 14 departments, and it is not always easy.

[Nicole Jauvin]

It is difficult.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I do not think that abolishing jobs and putting the entire workload on one person is a long-term solution.

We were told that we would not have enough university and college graduates to fill the positions of the people who will be shortly leaving the public service. Do you think that you will have to face the situation in the near future, or do you already have to deal with it as you plan your recruiting procedures?

[Nicole Jauvin]

Regarding that data, I rely on my colleague Ms. Barrados, who receives all the applications. She says that on the contrary, the PSC has no problem in attracting highly educated people.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

I am not saying that universities and colleges are not training competent people: I am simply proposing that there will not be enough of these people to fill all the vacant positions at that time.

[Nicole Jauvin]

If that occurs, I believe it will be in very specific sectors. We are in the process of doing such an analysis, to ensure we can recruit the appropriate people. In fact, we are increasingly searching for specialists in highly particular fields.

[Richard Nadeau, Bloc, Gatineau, QC]

We are talking about more specialized disciplines.

[Nicole Jauvin]

Exactly.

In some disciplines, we will have to try to find the appropriate people. Generally speaking, however, when searching for policy analysts or consultants for a minister, we try to find people who were trained as generalists. The existing recruitment and professional development programs show us that there are a number of people with one or two master's degrees in our labour pool. These are highly competent people. I do not believe that the pool will dry up.