Unrestrained

Via Statistics Canada CANSIM Table 183-0002, an update on the size of the Newfoundland and Labrador provincial public sector to the end of 2011. (Axes do not cross at zero.)

Each column represents the 12-month rolling average of the total provincial public-sector employment for the year up to, and including, that month. So, for example, the rightmost column, December 2011, shows the average provincial public payroll for all of calendar year 2011.

"Provincial public sector" as used about these parts includes the direct provincial government civil service, employment in the public health-care system, school boards, public post-secondary educational system, and crown corporations; all areas where provincial government budgetary and policy decisions shape the size and role of that component of public-sector employment. It does not include federal civil service and crown corporation employment, or employment by local governments.

Note that by late 2011, the 12-month average of provincial public-sector employment was actually reaching new highs, topping out just a nudge under 55,000 for the calendar year. The raw figure for December was 56,689 — the highest on record since Statistics Canada started keeping track in 1981. This was the product of slightly contradictory trends: direct civil service employment was down about 2% in 2011 vs. 2010, but employment rose in every other provincial public sector category over the same period. School board employment was up 0.2%, post-secondary education up 1.1%, crown corporations up 0.9%, and health care up 1.4%.

Provincial public-sector employment now accounts for almost a quarter — 24.4% for the twelve months ending in December 2011 inclusive — of total employment in Newfoundland and Labrador. Thanks to a modest uptick in private-sector employment over the course of the year, that is down slightly from the high of 25.3% of employment in early 2010, but is still near record high levels for the province, and well above the comparable figure for any other province, ever.

This is what constitutes "restraint".