Premium Compensation: The Ballooning Cost of Federal Government Employees

Abstract

The federal government has been spending freely lately. While it has advertised rapid increases in spending as positive, various fiscal pressures-growing debt and interest payments, pressure to get tax rates down, and the greater need of provinces and territories for revenue-will eventually require Ottawa to rein it in. That task will require tackling the cost of federal employees, which has been rising rapidly. Total compensation per employee jumped by nearly 5 percent per year