The Bank of Canada plans to cut roughly 225 positions—about 10% of its workforce—as part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s broader push to curb federal spending. A memo cited by Bloomberg says the reductions will be phased in over the next few months and completed by June. The central bank has already trimmed non-salary budgets, frozen hiring and offered early retirement, but these measures fall short of its target of reducing costs by 10% by 2026 and 15% between 2026 and 2028.

The cuts come after a sharp expansion in the bank’s staffing since the pandemic, rising to 2,350 employees in 2023 from about 1,800 in 2019. They also align with Ottawa’s wider expenditure review, which includes a plan to shrink the federal public service by approximately 40,000 positions and achieve $60 billion in savings over five years.

For the Canadian job market, these reductions add pressure to an already cooling public-sector hiring landscape. While private-sector employment has grown unevenly across provinces, the federal government’s retrenchment is expected to dampen demand for specialized administrative, policy and regulatory roles—especially as departments scale back or end programs to meet savings targets.

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Erik Hertzberg’s original article, “Bank of Canada to cut 10% of staff as Carney hunts for savings” was published in Financial Post on November 5, 2025. Read the Full Financial Post story.

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