OTTAWA — Statistics Canada says it will be cutting around 850 of its staff along with 12 per cent of its executive team.

Carter Mann, spokesperson for the national statistical agency, said Statistics Canada will inform affected employees within the next two weeks.

Data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat shows 7,274 people worked at Statistics Canada as of March 31, 2025, and 99 of them were part of the executive team.

Several departments, including Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Environment and Climate Change and Employment and Social Development, told their staff late last year that news on job cuts would be shared this month.

Sean O’Reilly, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, said workforce adjustment notices have been issued to 3,274 workers, including 940 of the union’s members.

O’Reilly said it’s still not clear which programs will be affected.

The union said it’s concerned about the job cuts coming as the agency prepares for a census in May.

“It’s a really dark day for us here and I think for Canadians,” O’Reilly said. “StatCan produces data that really underpins all the government decision-making and is used by businesses and communities.

“I have real concerns about this also causing more generational damage to the data that Canadians rely on every day.”

Ottawa is looking to cut program spending and administration costs by about $60 billion over the next five years through its “comprehensive expenditure review.”

The latest federal budget said the exercise will involve “restructuring operations and consolidating internal services.” It said it also will deploy workforce adjustments and attrition to return the size of the public service to “a more sustainable level.”

O’Reilly said the union has been informed that job cuts will soon be announced by Shared Services Canada, and hundreds of staff members are likely to be affected.

“They’re sort of the backbone of the IT infrastructure of Canada and the federal government, and they do a lot of work in cybersecurity. And to see cuts there also, it seems like we’re basically hollowing out all these key underlying services that Canadians and the federal government rely on,” O’Reilly said.

The Canadian Press has reached out to Shared Services Canada for more information.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 13, 2026.

— With files from Craig Wong

Catherine Morrison, The Canadian Press