Thank you very much.
I'll go on to the next question.
I'm actually looking for a breakdown in four or five areas. Let me just preface my remarks by saying that the turnover we experience in our public sector blows me away. I just cannot imagine how a government can function with the turnover rate we have. From all of our levels of management trying to deliver a job to all of the people in any position trying to fulfill their responsibilities, with the dramatic turnover we have, I literally cannot imagine how poorly run we are or how inefficient we are with this kind of a turnover rate.
I'm seeing the rate at basically around 40% now. Last year it was 35%; the year before that it was 30%; the year before that it was 23%; the year before that it was 18%. My point is that we're not heading in the right direction.
When I see this kind of turnover, I have two areas of concern. I want a comparison to another sector, and I'll get to that.
In terms of all of these transfers taking place, I'll give you four categories. I'm certainly not asking you to come up with numbers, but eventually I'd like some information on this from the department. In terms of all these transfers that are taking place, or the massive turnover, what percentage is the result of retirement, what percentage would be advancement, what percentage would be as a result of all the temporary conditions you've listed—maternity, reservists, etc.—and what percentage would be simply a request for relocation?
If we are able to separate those four components right there, it would give us a little better understanding. Obviously we have one other internal problem that it could be, which is just total job dissatisfaction. I'm hoping that is the smallest category, but if it turned out to be one of the major categories, then we really have some problems.
At some point, I'd like a report back to this committee with some range of discussion on that.
One other point I would like to make is that we found the turnover rate is much smaller in a lot of the smaller communities where we have federal employees than it is in larger urban cores. Why? We need to know why. Does that mean we should take a lot of our federal responsibilities that have accumulated in large urban cores and start to spread them to smaller communities? Is that the solution? I'm not suggesting it is, but if there's a correlation between the low turnover rate in your smaller communities versus your massive, “bloated” bureaucracy, then we have another problem.
I would like your comment on that.