Quebec announces recruitment freeze in the public service

After President of the Conseil du trésor Sonia LeBel announced a recruitment freeze in the public service sector starting in November, a union said it’s like being stuck in a re-run.

Quebec is about to freeze hiring external candidates and will only fill positions from within.

 “In order to curb the growth in the number of employees in the public service and respect the budgets for the current year, the government will proceed with a recruitment freeze in the ministries and agencies (exclusions will apply) as of Nov. 1, 2024,” Lebel's office said in a news release.

Those exceptions are in education and health care, but the freeze will apply to support staff.

But that’s not comforting for CSN union president Caroline Senneville.

“It's the bad movie in which we've already played over and over again,” she said.

“If you are a nurse in a hospital, and you don't have the usual help with the paperwork, well, you have to do the paperwork instead of caring for people.”

The government said it needs to tighten its belt as the province is projecting a record-setting deficit of $11 billion by 2025.

Political analyst Raphaël Melançon said if economic trends continue, it could lead to austerity measures.

“We are spending money we do not have at the moment,” he said.

“It was obviously needed because an $8 billion, $11 billion deficit for the government is a huge amount of money that you need to retrieve somewhere.”

But for François Legault, who campaigned as being the premier of the economy and attacked the former Liberal government’s financial record, it would make a bad situation worse.

“It's probably the worst timing right now for Francois Legault to have to go towards austerity because he's at the lowest in the polls right now,” said Melançon.

“There's a budgetary update that's coming up. So, they need to have something substantial to show Quebecers that they have taken action.”

The date for that economic update has yet to be announced. Meanwhile, the recruitment freeze is starting Nov. 1 with no set end date.