The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) reportedly in its latest announcement said that it is cutting up to 280 more employees this spring.
CRA informed employees on Thursday that it was proceeding with “workforce adjustments,” and added that job reductions mostly impact positions in Ottawa and Gatineau.
“In recent years, a number of factors have impacted the CRA’s budget, including the sunsetting of COVID program funding, which has required the CRA to re-examine the size of its workforce,” the CRA said in a statement Friday morning.
“These adjustments will lead to up to 280 employees leaving the agency. We will be activating voluntary departure programs and where required, retention processes. These reductions mostly impact internal services and are mainly situated in the National Capital Region.”
Several branches, including the appeals branch, the compliance programs branch, human resources branch, legal services and the service, innovation and integration branch would be impacted by the CRA’s workforce adjustments..
A Canada Revenue Agency spokesperson was reported to say that the CRA “must operate within its budget.”
“The financial challenges facing the CRA have been driven by the end of temporary program funding, government-wide savings initiatives, and a shift in operational pressures,” the spokesperson said in an email.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are among the core departments which took a big hit, losing 1,944 employees and leaving it with 11,148 workers.
In March 2024, 367,772 federal public servants were employed between the agencies and the administration and that number had dropped one year later to 357,965, a 2.6 per cent decrease in the overall workforce.
A handful of departments and agencies saw growth in their workforces over last year, including Natural Resources Canada, which gained 293 employees, National Defence (381 employees), Global Affairs Canada (218 employees) and the Communications Security Establishment (196 employees).
Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney is being called upon by the Union of Taxation Employees to impose an “immediate moratorium on job cuts” at the Canada Revenue Agency.
In a statement, the union says the workforce adjustment at CRA is “yet another blow in a relentless series of cuts that, since fall 2024, have gutted over 3,000 jobs at CRA.”
“These successive cuts hit our members hard, but they also greatly impact the Canadian population and businesses,” Marc Brière, national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, said in a statement.
“With every position eliminated, processing delays grow longer, calls go unanswered, files pile up, and citizens are left behind in uncertainty. Those who remain are being pushed beyond their limits—expected to do more with less, while working under mounting stress and growing job insecurity.”
This is the fifth announcement of job cuts or contracts not being renewed at the Canada Revenue Agency since December, according to the union.
CRA announced in November, the contracts of 600 term employees would not be renewed.
The union said that CRA had eliminated 450 positions in April, and the contracts for 1,300 employees were not renewed in CRA call centres in May.
CRA’s workforce adjustments announced on Thursday, Brière said will be in 10 “internal services” at the agency – “that’s major.”
“They might not give direct service to the population, but they help the CRA and the operations in the field and the regions to operate, to give them service,” Brière was reported to tell CTV News Ottawa Friday morning.
The recent job reductions at the Canadian Revenue Agency, particularly in the CRA call centre, warned the head of the union, will increase waiting times and impact services.
“It’s mathematic. If you let go of thousands of people, I mean the service is going to be impacted. The CRA and the government may say otherwise, but it is absolutely ridiculous to say that,” Brière said.
“Already this week, after days only of having less people on the lines (in the CRA call centre), I’m hearing a lot of people already complaining that they are swamped, and the summer is coming. During the summer, there’s a peak season for self-employed Canadians and people coming for benefits, so I expect the call waiting at the CRA just to explode like it did last summer.”
A spokesperson of the Canada Revenue Agency said that as the agency reexamines the size of the workforce, it has “remained focused on minimizing the impacts on both employees and services to Canadians.”
“The CRA will continue to put Canadians at the centre of how they provide the services and to look for ways to make digital services faster and easier to use,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Most recently, improvements were made to Canada.ca and within an individual’s CRA account, giving taxpayers more options to self-serve and to find the information they need without having to call the Agency.”
New statistics from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows the number of employees at the Canada Revenue Agency dropped from 59,155 employees in March 2024 to 52,449 employees as of March 31, 2025.
The message sent to Canada Revenue Agency employees said that “further analysis is currently underway” within the agency, adding “given the amount of work underway, we don’t anticipate any new (workforce adjustments) announcements before the fall.”
Earlier this week, Prime Minister Mark Carney released his mandate letter to Canada’s Ministry, outlining seven priorities, the seventh one being, “Spending less on government operations so that Canadians can invest more in the people and businesses that will build the strongest economy in the G7.”
The Liberal Party platform released during the federal election campaign said the party is committed to “capping, not cutting public service employment.” The party promised a “comprehensive review of government spending in order to increase the federal government’s productivity.”
