Earlier this week, the Alberta government released their 2025–2026 budget.
Lots of other people are analyzing spending in various areas, but there’s one area that most people seem to be overlooking. And it’s in my wheelhouse.
Let’s look at how many people will be working in the public sector during the next budget year.
Specifically, I want to examine post-secondary workers, K–12 workers, and health care workers.
| 2024–2025 | 2025–2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post-secondary institutions | 33,114 | 33,741 | 627 |
| K–12 certified | 38,882 | 39,927 | 1,045 |
| K–12 non-certified | 28,100 | 28,660 | 560 |
| Alberta Health Services | 79,730 | 81,530 | 1,800 |
| Primary Care* | 950 | 970 | 20 |
So, it seems as though the UCP are going to be hiring more teachers and nurses, eh? That must be a good thing, right?
Well, let’s bring in some more context.
First, here’s the increase in this year’s budget as a percentage of last year’s budget.
| Post-secondary institutions | 1.89% |
| K–12 certified | 2.69% |
| K–12 non-certified | 1.99% |
| Alberta Health Services | 2.26% |
| Primary Care | 2.11% |
All areas will see an increase of between 1.9% and 2.7% more workers over the next year.
However, that’s less than the increase in the number of people in the province.
At the end of 2023, there were 4,744,897 living in Alberta. A year later, at the end of 2024, the population had jumped to 4,931,601, a 3.9% increase.
In other words, even with the increase in the number of workers in those 5 areas, we’ll still have fewer workers per capita by the end of the budget year.
Here, let me show you the worker per capita ratio of each area this year compared to last year.
| 2024–2025 | 2025–2026 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post-secondary institutions | 143.29 | 146.16 | 2.87 |
| K–12 certified | 122.03 | 123.52 | 1.48 |
| K–12 non-certified | 168.86 | 172.07 | 3.22 |
| Alberta Health Services | 59.51 | 60.49 | 0.98 |
| Primary Care* | 4,994.63 | 5,084.12 | 89.50 |
As you can see, in all 5 cases, workers will have an increase in the number of people they’ll potentially be responsible for.
At this point, you might be wondering what the number of workers would look like if they kept up with population growth. Well, wonder no longer!
| Projected | Adjusted | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Post-secondary institutions | 33,741 | 34,416.98 | 675.98 |
| K–12 certified | 39,927 | 40,411.94 | 484.94 |
| K–12 non-certified | 28,660 | 29,205.69 | 545.69 |
| Alberta Health Services | 81,530 | 82,867.25 | 1,337.25 |
| Primary Care* | 970 | 987.38 | 17.38 |
If the government kept up with population growth, they would’ve hired an extra 676 people to work in post-secondary institutions (instructional and support); 489 more K–12 teachers; 546 more educational support workers in K–12; 1,338 more health workers employed by Alberta Health Services; and 18 more health workers employed by Primary Care.
And that’s assuming they would’ve already had sufficient numbers hired last year.
