Yellowknife, N.W.T. - According to the Union of National Defence Employees, JTFN's civilian workforce may be spared job losses.

More than 1,000 civilian workers are expected to lose their jobs nationally after the Department of National Defence lost $1.1 billion in funding over the next three years in the federal budget.

The union's national president, John MacLennan, said they've received official notice from the department of the job losses and cuts at JTFN aren't part of the plan for now.

“They’re going to continue trying to find savings throughout the next three years and I’m very skeptical that this isn’t over,” he said.

MacLennan suggested that job losses nationally will mean soldiers will be doing the jobs once held by the civilian workers.

“If you’re going to deploy the military in the south part of Canada into positions that used to be done by public service employees, they might depend on people in the North to come and backfill those positions,” he said.

In an email response, a spokesperson for the Canadian Forces stated that the Department of National Defence has increased their civilian work force 25 per cent since 2005.

These positions were needed because of a higher operational tempo but that now that Canada doesn't have a combat operation in Afghanistan the operational tempo is more, in their words, traditional.

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