The Government of the Northwest Territories recently posted an ad for this position in a national Canadian newspaper. The job description is an eight page document, filled with language fit to warm the hearts of bureaucrats everywhere.
The incumbent will “develop, interpret, and disseminate,” “provide continuing and effective representation”, “play a critical role”, and understand that “results are extremely focused.” In addition, although “no positions report to this position, the incumbent does exercise managerial and supervisory skills when providing direction to the stats.analyst, the stats. administrator, to the survey manager, and to casuals (summer students). “Human relation skills are critical to this position.”
“Physical demands: Not a factor.” “Environment Conditions: Not a factor.” “Sensory demands: Close attention required…”. “Mental Demands: Position works to strict deadlines, routinely involved in several complex and varied projects, requires prioritization of work to meet competing pressures”.
All great stuff if you’re a numbers junkie, and love statistics and their exciting formation and evolution. Granted, we do need to know certain things about the general population for planning purposes.
Businesses do this kind of research all the time. Unfortunately, so do governments. In this case, its clear the cost is huge. The social stats. person reports to a stats. manager, and has up to three people plus students below the position. The renumeration for this starts at $46.93 per hour, or about $91,514.00 per year, plus $3450.00 in Northern Allowance. Presumeably the others in the group would be paid similar amounts, so it’s not hard to imagine total payroll for this endeavour could easily exceed a quarter million dollars a year.
The total population of the Northwest Territories is 43,000. Its economy is primarily government administration, although the discovery of diamonds has had some impact on “real taxes being paid”. Most of the money received by the GNWT comes from Ottawa and the federal government as grants in lieu, as the tax base is very small. It’s easy to see how creation in Ottawa, causes creation in all the provinces and territories, regardless of actual value, necessity or cost.
Just how many times a year do you have to count 43,000 people?
