One in five workers is a government employee. Should Canadians be worried?

The number of Canadians working in the public sector has been a hot topic since the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, as the public sector has accounted for a disproportionately large share of net job gains compared with its share of total employment.

Over the past decade, 33.4 per cent of all new employment has been in the public sector. Today, public employees make up 21.7 per cent of the national work force, one of the highest levels in more than three decades, excluding a brief spike early in the pandemic.