With Labour Day just around the corner, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on all government agencies to be more aggressive in reducing the gap between the number of sick days taken by government employees and the taxpayers who are paying for them.

 

New data from Statistics Canada, specifically obtained by the CTF, shows the average government employee in NS takes 12 sick days off a year – far higher than the 8.4 taken by their private sector counterparts.

 

“Government employees apparently have no idea what it’s like to work in the real world, where sick days are taken only when you’re sick,” said Kevin Lacey, the CTF’s Atlantic Director. “With the sick day gap between government and the rest of us now 43 per cent, it should be taxpayers who might want to lie down.”

 

“Along with being one the highest tax jurisdictions in all of Canada, Nova Scotia can now claim to be above the national average at something else… the number of sick days our government employees are taking,” added Lacey.

 

Across the country, federal government employees took 17.9 days of sick leave, according to the most recent Treasury Board survey. In comparison, the most recent national report from Statistics Canada shows employees working outside of government took only 6.7 sick days in 2012.

 

“We have more federal government employees booking off sick on any given day than actually show up for work at General Motors and Chrysler combined,” said CTF Federal Director Gregory Thomas. “We’re facing an epidemic of sick-leave abuse amongst government employees and it needs to be stopped.”

 

For the CTF’s national news release on federal government sick days, click here.

For the provincial breakdown of StatsCan’s sick day numbers, click here.