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The Manitoba government has hired 1,965 new employees in its first year, costing taxpayers approximately $113 million annually, according to documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
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The federation is warning that continued bureaucratic growth is unsustainable for taxpayers.
“Taxpayers can’t afford the government’s increasing bureaucrat bill,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director in a statement on Thursday. “Balancing the budget means making the government smaller, not spending more on its largest expense.”
The hiring spree took place from October 2023 to October 2024, after Premier Wab Kinew’s government took office on Oct. 3, 2023. The increase in government positions has raised concerns, especially as the number of employees earning more than $100,000 per year has surged by 83% since 2020, from 12,320 to 22,496.
On average, Manitoba government employees earn 8.5% more than their counterparts in the private sector, retire 2.1 years earlier and face a lower risk of job loss.
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Paying employees is the largest expense in the provincial budget, with $9.2 billion spent on wages last year, representing 42% of total government spending. Despite this, the government is projecting a $1.3 billion deficit for the year, with $2.3 billion set aside for interest payments on the provincial debt.
Finance Minister Adrien Sala has said the budget will be balanced by 2027.
Haubrich said, “It’s impossible to balance the budget while adding hundreds of millions of dollars to the government wage bill every year.”
Haubrich urges the government to focus on saving money rather than increasing spending on new hires.
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