Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions this morning are addressed to the Minister for Human Resources. I’d like to follow up on some of the conversation that has been happening in the House and during the budget and during questions and statements in the last little while. I’m going to ask him some questions about jobs.
The Minister has advised us that some 15 to 20 percent of GNWT jobs are empty at any one time. So that is as of October of 2013, it was about 571 jobs that were apparently vacant. I’ve spoken before about the difficulty that I see people are going to encounter because they can only access jobs on-line. Jobs won’t be advertised in the paper anymore. So I think the Minister can appreciate why Members want to see jobs advertised on-line and jobs available to our constituents, especially if on-line is the only way to go.
My first question to the Minister is this: When it’s determined that a job is either going to be open or it’s a new job, how long does it take that job to get posted to the on-line program? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Minister of Human Resources, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve indicated in the House previously that we’re also going to be posting jobs at the community level. I’d indicated in the small communities exactly where the jobs would be posted and so on.
To answer the Member’s question, if the department has a vacant position that they wish to fill, then they indicate their desire to fill the position by ensuring that the job description, the ad and everything is ready, then they start working with the department. My understanding is that from the time the department advises HR that they wish to fill the position, that position would be advertised in about four weeks.
Thanks to the Minister. Four weeks seems like an inordinately long time to go from when you know that you need a body to when it is posted. I appreciate that that’s bureaucracy and my concern is bureaucracy moves awfully slowly.
It’s fairly common knowledge, I think, and I don’t think it’s something that the government really wants to admit, but I think it’s out there that there are jobs that are not posted because they’re being held back for a particular person and I’d like to ask the Minister what he knows about this practice. Certainly I feel, and I think many of the residents of the NWT feel, that people, constituents, residents should have the opportunity to apply on any vacancy, and if jobs are held back then, obviously, that’s not available for them to know about the job.
So, to the Minister, how many jobs are held back? Does he have that number and could he comment on the practice? Thank you.
Thank you. I don’t think we have a category in PeopleSoft, in our system totally at all that are a category that our jobs are held back for someone else. We have vacancies, yes. There are vacancies that can be held for an individual that’s on a transfer assignment that is going to come back to their home position and then there’s also, on the other side of the coin, there would be vacancies where the department sees that it would be a good opportunity for someone to come into the department on a transfer assignment, those vacancies filled by casuals because they’re having positions that are difficult to recruit.
I know that last year, in 2013, the departments had 1,818 staffing actions, 1,265 were either hires, transfers or promotions and 553 separations. So I think things are moving through the system, but I’m not aware of positions that are being specifically held back. At least the deputy minister doesn’t come to me and say, I decided to hold these positions back because I have someone in mind. That is not just a category that we entertain. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I don’t think the Minister understood where I was going. I’m not talking about a category in PeopleSoft; I’m talking about something that happens before the job ever gets to PeopleSoft. It certainly, I think, is well known within the government service that a job may be coming vacant and it’s not put into PeopleSoft, it’s not advertised because there’s somebody either within the department or, I hate to say it, somebody’s friend who they may want to get that job.
The Minister kind of led me into my next question and that’s the use of casuals. Casuals are a very common practice for us in terms of filling vacancies, but casuals are often extended many, many times. I know any number of people who have had their casual position extended five times, a year at a time, six months at a time.
I would like to know from the Minister, when a job is filled by a casual, is it advertised in PeopleSoft as a vacancy? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as of October 31, 2013, of the 1,150 vacancies, 208 of those categorized as vacancies were filled by casuals. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I can appreciate they were filled by casuals, but were they advertised in PeopleSoft as vacancies? They should be. If it’s a casual position and not permanent, if there’s not a permanent person in there, it should be advertised.
The Minister mentioned, in one of his answers earlier, that jobs are not necessarily advertised as vacant because they can be in various stages. They could be in the advertising stage, the interview stage or offer pending stage. It seems to me that we should have all of our jobs posted and if there is a stage, it’s in a certain stage, like an offer stage; for instance, flag that job as it’s in the offer stage. People would then know that the job may or may not be available in the next period of time. It may be filled; it may not. I think that certainly the more information we can provide to our residents the better.
I would ask the Minister if he would consider whether or not PeopleSoft would start reflecting all jobs at whatever stage they’re in. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I’m going to have a discussion with the deputy on this because I’m not quite understanding how we would be able to do that. When someone leaves the employ of the GNWT then that position becomes vacant. That vacant position, if there’s an immediate requirement, then that position could be filled with a casual. That gives an opportunity for the department to maybe evaluate what they wish to do with that position. As an example, it could be a position that’s hard to recruit. I’m not quite understanding clearly how we would be able to let the public know that we have this many vacancies but only this many of them can be advertised at one time because this many positions are in the appeal process, this many people are in the hiring process, this many are in the offering process and this many are in the interviewing process. I’m not sure that there would be any value in that to start with, but I’m not even sure how we would be able to advertise that whole thing on the website. It would be something that’s difficult to do, but something that we would like to look at. I can promise the Member that I will talk to the deputy, like I said, and see if that is a possibility. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
