Ministry of Finance

Public Sector Employers' Council Secretariat

Public Sector Overview

The people working in B.C.'s public sector provide a wide-range of services, including administrative, environmental, scientific, technical, health and social services, to name only a few.

  • The B.C. public sector employs approximately 370,000 people.
  • About 300,000 are unionized workers employed in the public service, at Crown corporations and agencies, and in the K-12, post-secondary, health and community social services sectors.
  • Currently, almost three-quarters of the people working in B.C.’s public sector now have tentative or ratified agreements settled under the 2012 Cooperative Gains Mandate. This represents half of all agreements.
  • An increase of 1% in total compensation for all unionized public sector employees costs approximately $198 million.
  • If applied to non-union and management groups, this increases to $240 million.
  • Negotiations under the 2012 Cooperative Gains Mandate are in progress across B.C.'s public sector

The data in the following charts is provided in open data format at the bottom of this page.

Public Sector Compensation Base
(total compensation base = 24 billion)

B.C. Public Sector Total Compensation Base $24 Billion

Data for Chart: Health - $11.8 B (49%) ; Education (K-12) - $4.5 B (19%); Public Service - 2.5 B (10%); Universities - $1.8 B (8%); Crown Corporations - 1.8 B (7%); Colleges and Institutes - $1.1 B (4%); Community Social Services - $0.6 B (3%); Total Compensation Base - $24 B

Public Sector Employee Headcount
(number of people employed in each sector)

B.C. Public Sector Headcount 370,000

Data for Chart - Health - 156,912 (42%); Education (K-12) - 81,585 (22%); Public Service - 35,133 (9%); Universities - 32,409 (9%); Crown Corporations - 21,455 (6%); Colleges and Institutes - 29,351 (8%); Community Social Services - 14,782 (4%); Total Headcount - 370,000


Public Sector Compensation Base Open Data

The data file below contains a list of all organizations encompassed by the Public Sector Employers Act, including estimated number of full-time equivalent positions (FTE), number of people employed in each sector (headcount) and total labour costs. Total labour costs includes employer paid wages, benefits and statutory benefits. The data is collected by surveying the organizations prior to a major collective agreement bargaining cycle and updated periodically to reflect changes reported by the organizations.

Public Sector Compensation Base Open Data Field Definitions [PDF]

Public Sector Compensation Base Open Data [CSV]

For more information on Open Data see DataBC website.