Employment and Social Development Canada

What Employment and Social Development Canada spent in fiscal year 2024-25: its net expenditure by standard object, from the Public Accounts of Canada, Volume II.

Reports through Employment and Workforce Development; the overview shows it in that ministry.

What Employment and Social Development Canada does

Established in 2005, Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) is a federal department responsible for supporting Canadians through social programs and workforce development. It administers key programs such as Employment Insurance (EI), the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), Old Age Security (OAS), and skills training initiatives, and it oversees Service Canada, which delivers government services directly to the public.

The department's spending is sensitive to economic conditions and major legislation. Federal income-support programs drove a sharp, temporary increase during the COVID-19 pandemic before spending returned to lower levels in the years that followed.

How did Employment and Social Development Canada spend its budget in 2024-25?

By standard object. Revenues it kept are negative and netted against its spending. Transfer payments are broken into their largest named programs.

Spending by standard object, 2024-25

Total: $98.9B.

Spending by program, 2024-25

The same net spending by program, as GC InfoBase reports program actuals: $98.9B in all. Select a program for its history, plans and results.

Workforce, 2024-25

A full-time equivalent is a measure of employment, not a headcount: two half-time employees are one FTE. Personnel spending includes benefits and pension contributions, so per FTE it is not an average salary.

Transfer payment programs, 2024-25

The grants, contributions and other transfers Employment and Social Development Canada paid, program by program: $96.2B in all, against $96.2B for the transfer payments object above (the Public Accounts publish the two tables separately).

Contracts of $10,000 and under

Contracts this small are not published one by one: Treasury Board publishes each organization's totals, by calendar year, for contracts of $10,000 and under (their original value and their amendments) and for acquisition card purchases. They are the value of contracts entered into, not what was paid in a fiscal year, so they are not part of the net expenditure above, and the years are calendar years.

Employment and Social Development Canada’s share of federal net spending

Each year is the organization that existed that year:

• Employment and Social Development Canada, 2013-14 to 2025-26
• Department of Human Resources and Skills Development, 2003-04 to 2012-13

How Employment and Social Development Canada’s programs performed

Other organizations in Employment and Workforce Development

• Accessibility Standards Canada
• Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety

Sources

• Public Accounts of Canada 2025, Volume II: Ministerial expenditures by standard object (Table 3)
• Public Accounts of Canada, Volume II: Transfer payments (multi-year open data)
• GC InfoBase – Federal Programs – Actual and Planned Spending (programs_spending.csv)
• GC InfoBase – Federal Programs – Actual and Planned Employees (programs_ftes.csv)
• Proactive Publication - Contracts: Aggregated Total - Contracts $10K and under

Department figures are net expenditure (Public Accounts, Volume II), which doesn’t add up to the accrual expenses of the overview’s headline. See the methodology.