Inuit employment with the GN stalled at 50 per cent

According to the latest human resource capacity report released by the Nunavut government, overall capacity remains at 75 per cent and of those people who work for Nunavut’s public service, only half are Inuit. (PHOTO BY THOMAS ROHNER)

While Inuit employment in the Nunavut public service has improved slightly overall since 1999 — from 44 per cent of those employed in government to 50 per cent in 2014 — in some departments, Inuit job holders have declined.

According to statistics on employment filed at regular intervals by the Government of Nunavut, Inuit employment has dropped within the departments of Culture and Heritage, Community and Government Services and the Office of the Legislative Assembly.

If you look at where Inuit are employed, numbers are rising in the lower paying jobs — administrative support and paraprofessional — but the number of Inuit in higher level jobs are decreasing — at the executive level, for example, and in professional categories.

Since the creation of Nunavut, the GN has been publishing regular reports called “Towards a Representative Public Service.”

It is obliged to do so under Article 23 of the Nunavut Land Claim Agreement which states that the government must work towards a workforce that represents the proportion of Inuit who live in the territory — about 85 per cent.

According to the latest statistics from December 2014 and tabled in the legislature last week, of the 3,413 people employed within the GN public service, half are Inuit. That’s just slightly above what it was when the territory was created after 1999.

In term of capacity overall, the GN had 1,116 vacancies across all departments, agencies, boards and corporations as of the end of 2014.

The education department had the highest capacity with 89 per cent of its positions filled. The lowest was the health department which had a 39 per cent vacancy rate.

A couple of other departments and arms of government were doing well in keeping bodies at desks last year. Departments with top capacity included:

• Education: 89 per cent
• Qulliq Energy Corporation: 85 per cent
• Nunavut Arctic College: 81 per cent
• Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs: 79 per cent
• Office of the Legislative Assembly: 77 per cent
• Finance: 77 per cent
• Environment: 76 per cent

Departments operating at below average capacity included:

• Health: 61 per cent
• Family Services: 66 per cent
• Justice: 69 per cent
• Economic Development and Transportation: 70 per cent.

Statistics are also broken down by community.

The communities with the highest capacity are Grise Fiord and Kugaaruk, both of which were sitting at 91 per cent by year end 2014. Cambridge Bay, which had a 35 per cent vacancy rate, had the lowest capacity across the territory. Pangnirtung was next, with 30 per cent government staff vacancy.

Of the regions, Kivalliq had the highest rate of Inuit employment, with 59 per cent, followed by Kitikmeot, with 53 per cent, and Baffin, with 45 per cent.

It’s also interesting to note that of the four GN positions located in Ottawa, there were no vacancies.