Thanks for understanding that I won't have a lot of numbers handy. I can certainly say, having met with provincial colleagues who are dealing with issues, that they have similar challenges in some of the same functional communities I mentioned, such as finance and PE. We're all dealing in a very competitive labour market and we're looking at what's available coming out of universities and colleges, so yes, they have similar challenges when you talk to provincial governments, but they're also taking it seriously and trying to develop strategies to deal with it.
On retention in the public service, our average departure rate per year is basically around 5%. That's overall departures from the public service. I don't have firm numbers, but I can tell you that it is higher in the private sector. It's a few percentage points higher in terms of a general comparison of departure rates per year, so in the public service overall, our retention as an institution is quite good in terms of stability.
You wanted to know about the private sector as well. You talked about the general departure rate there. Turnover I don't want to try to comment on specifically, but I would imagine that because the labour market is competitive in particular fields, we're all probably feeling the pressure in those areas for attracting and retaining employees.
In a lot of the research that we share, whether we're public or private sector, we often hear studies that echo something called the “six-pack”. What is it that actually attracts and retains employees in any organization? Of course, the top things include really good leadership, a good work environment, meaningful work, fair compensation--those sorts of questions--and flexible work practices and policies, so every one of us, public sector and private sector, needs to be striving to make sure we're providing those things in order to attract and keep people. Career development and learning and development opportunities are on that list as well.
So there's a basket of things that we know we need to be able to provide and offer to be competitive in a labour market that we are all living in. I would say that whether we're private or public sector, we're all dealing with some similar challenges, just given the way the labour market is these days, and the demographics.