They’re far from DOGE-level numbers, but as the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency continues to slash America’s federal work force, Ottawa quietly released numbers this month that show Canada shed nearly 10,000 federal civil servants over the last year, the first decline since 2015.

But as the new Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney embarks on its own effort to make the federal public service more efficient, the demographic details of the job cuts point to the challenge ahead.

Out of the net decline of 9,807 positions between 2024 and 2025 – which brought the total work force down 2.6 per cent to 357,965 – nearly 80 per cent were workers in their twenties, numbers from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat showed.

That demographic breakdown lines up closely with other Treasury Board statistics which show a large majority of the job cuts hit temporary, contract and student positions.

Workers in those positions are “less likely unionized and are easily not renewed,” said Tammy Schirle, a professor of economics at Wilfrid Laurier University, in an e-mail.

In other words, they are the low-hanging fruit.

Young workers also collect much smaller paycheques than their older colleagues who were far less affected – the ranks of twentysomethings in the federal public service fell by 14 per cent, whereas just 1 to 2 per cent of older age groups were affected.

If the federal Liberals are “seeking further reductions in staff and/or costs, they might want to pay attention to the group age 60 and older,” Prof. Schirle wrote. That group accounts for 9 per cent of all federal workers, but to entice them to leave, Ottawa may need to reconsider its existing employee retirement provisions and offer additional retirement incentives, she said.

With the government’s stated intention of “capping the size of the public service, this could allow for recruitment and training of younger people.”

Decoder is a weekly feature that unpacks an important economic chart.