Evidence of meeting #166 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was jobs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
I'm sorry. I know you were going to get into some more detail, but unfortunately we're already past our allotted time. I will suggest to you, though, that should you have additional information, you could provide it to the committee through the clerk. That would be extremely helpful as the committee goes into further deliberations and conducts this further study.
We'll now go to our five-minute rounds, starting with Mr. Deltell.
You have five minutes, please.
4:50 p.m.
Gérard Deltell Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this parliamentary committee.
Mr. Fleury, I'll give you an opportunity right now to complete your answer to Ms. Ratansi's question.
4:50 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance, Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's fine.
I was going to say that according to our statistics from March 31, 2018 on jobs and types of jobs, 84% of public service positions are permanent.
You mentioned the category of temp help and whatnot.
The categories may change the perspective of the study. That is why I absolutely want to avoid criticizing Ms. Stinson's work. However, 84% of federal public service positions are in fact indeterminate, and that percentage has increased over the past years.
4:50 p.m.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
Could you explain what you mean by “indeterminate”?
4:50 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance, Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
Permanent jobs in the public service.
4:50 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance, Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I don't want to express a position in a debate about studies.
Several other institutions adopt the opposite approach on this in order to be able to respond with greater flexibility to the economy, to demand. I'm not saying that that is the position of the public service, but we've reached a point where we must analyze studies like yours and others to decide on our future direction. There are significant changes in the workplace and we have to determine the best combination to adopt.
4:50 p.m.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
Mr. Fleury and Ms. Poliquin, you are here at the same time as Mr. Page. I think this is the first time we've had witnesses from the public and private sector here together. I was quite pleased about it when I saw the witness list.
Mr. Page had the opportunity to explain what he could do for the public service. I would now like to know how you, as representatives of the public service, think you could benefit from the experience, expertise and advantages that Mr. Page's enterprise can provide.
4:55 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Governance, Planning and Policy Sector, Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer, Treasury Board Secretariat
I will let Ms. Poliquin talk about the system.
One of the benefits I see is the possibility of having access to existing data on skills assessment and to learn how they are managed. On this topic, the Office of the Chief Human Resources Officer just happens to be doing a study on a human resource management data system for the future. This concerns not only the internal data of the public service, but also external data. In this way we will be able to design a system and strategies that will provide us with all of the knowledge we need to make good decisions and plan for the future.
We will certainly be holding other meetings on data sharing, not only with platforms like LinkedIn, but also with the Public Service Commission, which has an enormous volume of data.
4:55 p.m.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
When you organize a competition, do you also post notices on sites such as the one for the company Mr. Page represents, so as to reach potential candidates?
4:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
The Public Service Commission does not do that, because we have our own recruitment platform, GC Jobs. However, some departments do that, because it is another way of attracting people's interest. In any case, the Public Service Commission's nomination policy requires that a competition notice be posted for at least 24 hours on the Government of Canada website.
4:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
The notice may be published in newspapers. Nothing prevents managers from using technology to reach as many people as possible.
On our side, we must make sure that the competition notice is posted for at least 24 hours on the Government of Canada website, as it is the site the population knows best.
4:55 p.m.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
When I was young, full employment did not exist, and there was no labour shortage. When I was 20, I would look at Le Soleil, a Quebec newspaper, on Saturday, and there were a lot of job offers there. Do you still use print newspapers today, or are job notices only posted digitally?
4:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Services and Business Development, Public Service Commission
The notices are almost exclusively digital, but we still use print in some places, like in the North.
4:55 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
Having worked in the Far North, I can assure you that print newspapers are still extremely important there. Jobs are still advertised in the newspapers in Nunavut and the other territories.
4:55 p.m.
Louis-Saint-Laurent, CPC
In conclusion, this may be something the government should consider doing to support the print environment and newspapers. We know that the written press is having some difficulties these days. Simply continuing to do things as they were done in the past could be one way of helping the papers, rather than injecting funds directly. That, however, is a whole other issue.
Thank you.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Tom Lukiwski
Thank you.
Colleagues, before we go to Madam Yip, there's a clarification.
On my calendar I had a notification that there would be votes and bells starting today at 5:15. Apparently, that is not true. There are no votes tonight, so we'll be able to extend our sitting time until 5:30, which means we can get a complete round and two seven-minute interventions coming after it. We will be sitting until 5:30.
Madam Yip, you have five minutes.
4:55 p.m.
Jean Yip Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.
There is a shortage of women in STEM in the federal government. Women constitute about 30% of computer science workers between the ages of 40 and 60, and only 16% are younger than 40. This shows that the public service is struggling to attract young women with a technology background.
Why is this happening? I would have thought the reverse would be true. What can be done?
4:55 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
We have put a special emphasis, particularly when it comes to the IT sector, on attracting more women in our post-secondary recruitment campaign.
About 25% of our computer science workers right now in government are women, so we know we have a gap. The percentage is very similar in universities and colleges that are producing graduates right now.
The pipeline needs to be stronger. This probably starts at the level of young girls, even before they start high school...to continue their studies in STEM. That's an area where there is some activity, some work that's being done to encourage girls to continue to study in this area.
Last year when we established our inventory of about 850 pre-qualified or pre-assessed candidates for computer science jobs, I think we got to about 30% of the applicants who were women. That was quite an effort.
The thing that we are allowed to do under the Public Service Employment Act is to consider employment equity groups first, before other groups. Last year we asked that managers consider first the women who were part of the inventory, before others were considered for potential jobs. That's an example of how we're trying to change that statistic.
Similar kinds of studies or work should be done in the areas related to scientific and technical work, where we also have some gaps.
5 p.m.
Scarborough—Agincourt, Lib.
Following Ms. Ratansi's comment about women, indigenous peoples and racialized communities, is there some overarching strategy? You mentioned already about the equity.
5 p.m.
President, Public Service Commission
Between us and the Treasury Board Secretariat, we certainly work very closely on employment equity objectives. We implement the Employment Equity Act.
I want to correct the record a little bit. We have an overrepresentation of women in the public service. Among the candidates for our programs, we have an overrepresentation of women candidates. We are an attractive offer to women—again, notwithstanding the fact that in certain categories it's more difficult, but generally they are overrepresented.
We also find that in all of our processes, whether it's post-secondary recruitment or of students, we typically get about twice as many candidates as are currently represented among visible minorities. We get 30% to 35% of our candidates for our programs who apply. This is one of the reasons we want to see more external recruitment. If we open up externally, we know the candidates are there. We know that we offer them quality opportunities. It's just a matter of opening the doors a little bit more. When we create inventories, the last thing we want is to see those inventories being underutilized.
There are challenges associated with persons with disabilities and indigenous people. We get lower rates of application or lower rates of self-identification through our programs. This is an area we're specifically working on. We've identified two targeted programs, for example, that we've developed over the last number of years to increase the number of persons with disabilities and indigenous people applying and being successfully employed in the federal government. I would remind you that we are also currently overrepresented in both of those categories compared with the labour force.