Mixed reviews on job attrition plan for public service

The head of the province's largest union saysgovernment's plan to cut 1,420 public service positions in the next five years through attrition will have a big impact on union members. Meanwhile,the head of theNewfoundland and Labrador Employers' Council says government could have reduced the size of the public servicesooner.

• Job attrition means fewer opportunities for young people: Earle McCurdy
• Ross Wiseman: 1,420 jobs to be removed from public service by 2020

IncomingNAPE President Jerry Earle says the province's public servicewill take a hit, and employees left behind will struggle to keep up with the workload.

Earle said the union has no information about where jobs will be taken away, so there's no way for him to prepare employees.

"We're not sure where those positions are coming from so obviously it's concerning that you take that number of people out of a public service, what effect is it going to have on the people of this province?" Earle said.

"That's the pieces that we don't have the information on and I wish the government would have talked to us up front because we have no idea where these jobs are actually going through attrition."

While thereare a number of employees eligible for retirement in the next five years, Ealre said there's no way to guarantee thatthose workers will, in fact,retire.

However, the executive director of theNewfoundland and Labrador Employers' Councilbelievesgovernment could have done more to reduce the size of the public service, and done it sooner.

Richard Alexander said the council would have preferred to see a three-year plan as opposed to the five years announcedon Monday.

"We have a lot of retirements in the public service right now so that will be a lot easier on public servants and public services by going that route, but we still have the highest programs and services expenditure of any province in Canada so we need to reduce that as well," Alexandersaid

"Government needs to look at each program and service and see do we need it, and if we don't you remove it or you look for alternate delivery models through the private sector or not for profit sector to deliver that to the public and in a less costly way than currently is being done."

On Monday, Finance Minister RossWiseman said government's five-year attrition plan doesn't include any layoffs. While he'sconfident layoffs could be avoided, Wiseman said hecouldn't rule them outentirely.