CRA tops federal organizations with 1,552 applications for early retirement

People walking outside government buildings in downtown Ottawa. Photo by Tony Caldwell /Postmedia

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More public servants at the Canada Revenue Agency applied for the federal government’s early retirement incentive than any other organization, according to new data from the Treasury Board.

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An online tracker launched Tuesday, Sept. 8. breaks down by organization and job classification the number of public servants who applied for the ERI, a program that allows eligible federal workers to retire early without incurring pension penalties.

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Announced in Budget 2025, the ERI aims to limit layoffs resulting from the government’s plan to cut billions of dollars in spending across most departments and agencies over the next several years.

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The federal government is attempting to shrink the public service by about 40,000 positions, or around 10 per cent of its peak headcount of 368,000 in 2023-2024, through a mix of layoffs and attrition.

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The ERI is one method.

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Treasury Board received a little more than 10,000 applications for the program. As of Sept. 8, 9,438 of those applications have been confirmed, according to the new online tracker. Meanwhile, 68 applications were denied and another 196 have been discontinued.

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Unsurprisingly, the largest federal organizations saw the most applications through the online portal.

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With 1,552 applications from a total population of 48,774, the CRA tops the list.

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Rounding out the top five departments are Employment and Social Development Canada, National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada and Correctional Service Canada.

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As a percentage of the workforce, the numbers tell a different story. On the low end, about 1.5 per cent of an organization’s workforce applied for ERI, while about 5.5 per cent applied on the high end.

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A higher percentage of employees at Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions applied for the ERI than any other department or agency, with 5.44 per cent of the organization’s 349 workers applying. (By contrast, about 3 per cent of the Canada Revenue Agency applied.)

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For job classification, the category labelled “other” saw the highest uptake, followed closely by administrative services, programme administration and information technology.

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The online tracker is the most detailed breakdown to date of which public servants opted for early retirement.

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The ERI was announced in Budget 2025 as a way to limit layoffs stemming from the federal government’s “comprehensive expenditure review” — the government’s plan to find $60 billion in savings over five years from the operational budgets of most departments and agencies.

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After the federal government announced the ERI in last year’s budget, it had to wait months to open applications for the program while it passed its budget bill.

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