When discussing employment with conservatives, I often hear claims like, “The only jobs the Alberta NDP created were government jobs.” I was curious about how true this was, so I decided to see whether the data supports this position.
According to the 2015–2016 provincial budget, there were the equivalent of 26,289 full-time people working within the various government ministries prior to the Alberta NDP taking office.
The 2019–2020 budget, on the other hand, shows that there were 26,734 full-time equivalent workers in government ministries by the time the NDP were voted out.
That means the NDP increased the number of equivalent full-time government jobs by 445 while they were in power, or about 111 jobs per year.
Here’s how the total numbers look for each year.

Here’s a look at the increases and decreases over the NDP term.

Even though the loss of jobs in the final year was enough to wipe out the gains in the first year, the gains in the other two years still meant a net gain in total ministry jobs.
That’s not all.
The NDP had actually planned to increase jobs by far more in their second year than they did. They had hoped to go from 26,523 in 2015–2016 to 29,618 the next year, a jump of 11.67%. That would’ve been the highest increase of their term.
But instead, their second year came in at 2,824 fewer full-time equivalent jobs they had planned.
Here are how the jobs looked when broken down by ministry.
2014-15 | 2018-19 | |
---|---|---|
Aboriginal Relations | 229 | 230 |
Advanced Education | 571 | 575 |
Agriculture & Food | 1,690 | 0 |
Agriculture & Forestry | 0 | 1,701 |
Children’s Services | 0 | 2,768 |
Community & Social Services | 0 | 3,163 |
Culture, Multiculturalism & Status of Women | 0 | 568 |
Culture & Tourism | 613 | 0 |
Economic Development & Trade | 335 | 0 |
Economic Development, Trade & Tourism | 0 | 373 |
Education | 648 | 553 |
Energy | 696 | 562 |
Environment & Parks | 2,134 | 2,213 |
Health | 978 | 910 |
Human Services | 6,187 | 0 |
Infrastructure | 958 | 938 |
Jobs, Skills, Training & Labour | 609 | 0 |
Justice & Solicitor General | 6,865 | 6,987 |
Labour & Immigration | 0 | 816 |
Municipal Affairs | 566 | 590 |
Seniors | 265 | 269 |
Service Alberta | 1,377 | 2,238 |
Status of Women | 3 | 0 |
Transportation | 788 | 732 |
Treasury Board & Finance | 777 | 548 |
26,289 | 26,734 |
Okay, so this can be a bit confusing. The data comes from the 2015–2016 and the 2019–2020 budget documents. The PCs, NDP, and UCP didn’t use the same names for the same ministries, and they moved portfolios around between ministries.
For example, what was Indigenous Relations under the NDP and UCP was Aboriginal Relations under the PCs. Also, you’ll notice that tourism moved from Culture and Tourism to Economic Development, Trade & Tourism. Also, the Seniors ministry became the Seniors and Housing ministry.
Either way, we can see that the number of people working within government ministries also increased.
But wait, there’s more.
The provincial government also hires workers to fill positions in schools, universities, colleges, and health, also referred to as SUCH, as well as public agencies and other arm’s length entities.
Here are all the government workers in the SUCH sector for the year before the NDP took office and their final year in office.
2014–15 | 2018–19 | |
---|---|---|
Agriculture Financial Services | 647 | 630 |
Alberta Energy Regulator | 1,232 | 1,240 |
Alberta Enterprise | 6 | 6 |
Alberta Health Services | 76,101 | 80,570 |
Alberta Innovates | 652 | 712 |
Alberta Insurance Council | 25 | 24 |
Alberta Investment Management | 372 | 427 |
Alberta Local Authorities Pension Plan | 6 | 8 |
Alberta Pensions Services | 282 | 297 |
Alberta Securities Commission | 191 | 204 |
Alberta Utilities Commission | 150 | 143 |
Certificated Edcuation Staff | 34,375 | 37,197 |
Energy Efficiency Alberta | 0 | 34 |
Health Quality Council of Alberta | 31 | 35 |
Legislative Assembly | 714 | 746 |
Natural Resources Conservation Board | 47 | 47 |
Non-certificated Edcuation Staff | 24,218 | 26,452 |
Post-secondary institutions | 33,517 | 33,588 |
Safety Codes Council | 0 | 60 |
Transportation Safety Board | 13 | 12 |
Travel Alberta | 84 | 80 |
Victims of Crime Fund | 37 | 54 |
172,700 | 182,566 |
The SUCH sector grew from 172,700 when the NDP took power to 182,566 over the next 4 years, an increase of nearly 10,000.
And that seems like a lot, but keep in mind that bulk of those are in 3 areas. Here are the jobs listed by total increases.
4-year change | |
---|---|
Alberta Health Services | 4,469 |
Certificated Edcuation Staff | 2,822 |
Non-certificated Edcuation Staff | 2,234 |
Post-secondary institutions | 71 |
Alberta Innovates | 60 |
Safety Codes Council | 60 |
Alberta Investment Management | 55 |
Energy Efficiency Alberta | 34 |
Legislative Assembly | 32 |
Victims of Crime Fund | 17 |
Alberta Pensions Services | 15 |
Alberta Securities Commission | 13 |
Alberta Energy Regulator | 8 |
Health Quality Council of Alberta | 4 |
Alberta Local Authorities Pension Plan | 2 |
Alberta Enterprise | 0 |
Natural Resources Conservation Board | 0 |
Alberta Insurance Council | -1 |
Transportation Safety Board | -1 |
Travel Alberta | -4 |
Alberta Utilities Commission | -7 |
Agriculture Financial Services | -17 |
During the NDP administration, the equivalent of over 9,500 full-time jobs were created in healthcare and K–12 education. That’s 96.5% of the jobs hired in the SUCH sector.
The other 19 entities accounted for only 341 new jobs, the other 3.5%.
And those numbers for AHS and schools aren’t all admin either. In fact, AHS management dropped from 3,382.74 FTEs in 2014–2015 to 3,113.27 in 2018–2019, a decrease of roughly 270.
Medical staff, on the other hand, increased by 5,332.5 during those 4 years, according to AHS annual report data. There were 1,013 more registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, and grad nurses; 1,021 more LPNs; 1,418 more other health technical and professionals; and 1,904 more unregulated health service providers.
So, while it’s true that public sector jobs increased by 10,321 while the NDP were in power, over 90% of them were medical personnel and K–12 staff.

14 replies on “Did the Alberta NDP really increase public sector jobs?”
Thanks Kim! I knew there was no way the NDP hired the huge amount of public servants that I’ve read conservative commentators accused them of hiring. I’ve read anywhere from 40K to 80K, and clearly, the true number is much lower. Thank you for investigating this issue.
You’re welcome!
Good analysis. However, as a Manitoban who worked in and around the health care system for over 35 years, some things cannot be measured. What the “Conservatives” do, is keep jobs “open” on paper, but never fill them or eliminate jobs when they become vacant. In either scenario, the jobs need to be filled, but aren’t. In some cases, the work is contracted to outside entities who perform the work, but the people doing the work are not government “employees”. Often these contracted jobs actually cost more than what the cost of hiring an employee would be. The NDP often gets caught in the trap of re-hiring for those positions which shows as an increase in government employees. I suspect the health sector was a victim of the “elimination by vacancy” over the years.
That is not to say that the NDP is more honest or better than other political parties in handing out or calling in political favours, only different in how they do it.
Great point.
Kim,
As a UCP supporter I appreciate your article and believe your numbers. I don’t want to blame the NDP for something they aren’t responsible for so thank you! I remain puzzled by the contrast between your numbers and those of the Fraser Institute study which I don’t believe you attempted to explain. I assume the difference comes from the fact Fraser was looking at all levels of government, federal, provincial, and municipal. Do you concur?
You’re welcome. I appreciate your kind words, Clayton. My intent is to present the data so everyone can see it.
I don’t think I’m familiar with the Fraser Institute study. Do you have a link handy?
Thanks for responding so quickly. I assumed your article was in response to the Fraser Institute study which estimated an increase in public sector employment of over 70,000 during the NDP’s tenure. I haven’t read the study myself only news reports and the bottom line number. If I may ask what prompted you to write the article?
https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/illusion-of-albertas-jobs-recovery-government-vs-private-sector-employment
Honestly, it’s been almost a year since I wrote the article, so I don’t recall what specifically prompted me to write it. I do often see people complain that the NDP only created public sector jobs, so it might have been one of these comments that prompted me to write it.
I took a look at the Fraser Institute, and their article looks at a different dataset than mine did. Their data falls between July 2014 and May 2018. Mine fell between April 2015 and March 2019. They seemed to also use the Statistics Canada data, while I specifically looked at the data from the Government of Alberta annual reports, which shows only public sector workers that are directly funded by provincial revenue.
Perfect. Thanks! I have a few friends that quote the 70,000 number. I will put it in the appropriate context for them. I would have loved to blame the NDP for the increase but that clearly won’t fly. It’s work like yours that starts to bring people together using accurate and carefully referenced information.
Our society won’t get better until people from all walks of life can come together. Thanks for stopping by, Clayton. Hopefully, you’ll be back again. 🙂
Hey Kim,
I think I posted a comment asking about the number of employees being expanded massively while I was working for AHS and we’d had a hiring freeze (and pay freeze!) for years already, by that point.
I kept reading comments about how the NDP hugely increased the number of public employees, and I knew the quoted numbers weren’t realistic based on the hiring freeze, so I asked if you could look into it since you’re so good with data on this kind of thing.
Thanks again, Kim.
You can see the AHS numbers in the above post.
Right, I was explaining that my questions were at least part of your motivation for writing this story last year.
Ah, that’s possible, although there’s more than just AHS numbers in here.