DND Announces Shifts in Military Jobs to Reduce Costs

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The Department of National Defence has revealed that an estimate of 5,000 civilian and uniformed employees might end up having a new job, or in some cases be out of job, as the department launches a program to become more efficient. The department boasted its five-year initiative to cut waste and reduce overhead, which could end up saving as much as $1.2 billion a year by 2018. It is planned that this saved money will be redirected toward boosting military readiness and capability.

During a news conference held on Monday, Defence Minister, Rob Nicholson, mentioned that “these resources will be redirected towards the continued modernization of the Canadian Armed Forces’ capabilities and other defence priorities.” It was added that “it is about strengthening defence for the future.” Nicholson unveiled that this initiative was taken as per request of the Prime Minister, who sought the military to find more resources to support the front line.

Speaking of the same thing, a defense official explained a bitter reality of the initiative, detailing that those who can’t be retrained or redeployed to other locations might end up being jobless. The ideas of potential savings were explained to include making greater use of simulators to train helicopter pilots, streamlining information technology and reducing travel costs. Moreover, the department alleged that the case of the aircraft maintenance personnel, who spend only 20 per cent of their time actually working on the aircraft, with the rest taken up by other duties including a “heavy layer of paperwork.”