That's the increase in personnel spending, not in the number of FTEs, or employees. The decrease followed by an increase in 2017‑18 was probably an anomaly. There may have been one-off factors. The thing we need to pay attention to is the trend.
Is it worrisome? Yes and no.
It's not worrisome if services provided by the public service are getting better. It is worrisome if those services aren't getting better, that is, if there aren't more services or if the quality of the existing services doesn't improve or deteriorates. That's something we would have to look at along with the results that the government and Canadians are getting for that money.