Archived - 2020 to 2021 CFIA full-time equivalents

In fiscal year^Footnote 1 2020 to 2021, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) had 6,168 full-time equivalents (FTEs) dedicated to safeguarding food, animals and plants, which enhances the health and well-being of Canada's people, environment and economy.

• 3,468 FTEs were used for the agency's field inspection (2,899 FTEs) and laboratory professional capacity (569 FTEs)
  • This includes work done by front-line inspectors, veterinarians and scientists in federally registered establishments, import service centers, field offices or laboratories
    • For example, the FTEs were dedicated to inspecting slaughterhouses, analyzing samples in laboratories, providing microbiology and toxicology expertise, inspecting ship holds for insects, testing animals in the field for diseases, leading investigations, examining farm crops, authorizing nurseries and greenhouses for export and assessing quality assurance and quality management
• 553 FTEs were used for the agency's inspection and scientific specialist capacity
  • This includes work done by chemists, biologists, scientific researchers, risk assessors and operational specialists
• 2,147 FTEs represented management and support capacity
  • This includes work done by policy advisors, program managers, executives, statisticians, legal counselors, human resources advisors, financial management professionals, communications specialists, real property, material and acquisition services, information technology and information management specialists as well as students who collectively support safety outcomes

Full-time equivalents

Full-time equivalents (FTE) is a standard financial measure used to capture the total paid hours of an organization's workforce over the course of a fiscal year.

1 full FTE is equal to 37.5 hours of work per week over 12 months (for example, the total work of 1 full-time employee, or the combined work of 2 half-time employees).

Using FTEs on an annual basis, rather than the fluctuating number of employees at a given period in time, more accurately depicts the CFIA's investment in inspection activities across the agency and throughout the year.

Several factors can influence year over year variances in the inspection FTEs, such as: service requirements; evolving priorities; risk and incident management; and workforce attrition.