Nearly a decade after it was launched, the Phoenix pay system is still a daily source of stress for most federal public service workers. It’s holding back careers, fueling anxiety, and compounding the government's growing pay backlog.

According to the 2024 Public Service Employee Survey, one in five respondents — more than 41,000 workers — experienced pay problems in the past year alone. More than half of them say those issues remain unresolved.

Stress, stalled careers, and a lack of support

The numbers tell a troubling story: 62 per cent of federal workers report feeling stress about whether they’ll be paid properly from one pay period to the next. One in five say Phoenix-related pay issues are causing a large or very large amount of stress in their work lives. This is barely an improvement from two years ago.

Phoenix isn’t just affecting workers’ peace of mind, it’s also holding them back from career growth. One third of workers say they’re concerned that accepting a job transfer will impact their pay and it will take months to be corrected in their new position. That fear prevents people from applying for promotions or pursuing new opportunities within the public service.

And when problems do arise, most workers aren’t getting the help they need from their employer. More than half said they were dissatisfied with the support they received from their department. These results have remained virtually unchanged since 2022.

Backlog remains staggering

The stress reflected in the survey results is echoed in the numbers behind Phoenix’s mounting caseload.

While the number of Phoenix pay cases seems to finally be trending downward — from 372,000 in January to 304,000 in June — the pace of progress remains far too slow for the tens of thousands of public service workers still waiting to be paid correctly.

There are long overdue signs of improvement: the overall caseload dropped by nearly 70,000 files in the first half of 2025. But serious problems persist. The government is still missing its own service standards on 69 per cent of active files, and nearly half — 150,000 cases — have been stuck in the system for more than a year.

At this rate, the backlog could take another decade to resolve. Without a clear plan to accelerate progress, thousands of workers will remain in financial limbo for years to come.

Workers deserve better

Nearly a decade since Phoenix launched, the crisis is far from over. The government’s failure continues to cause real harm to tens of thousands of public service workers who deserve better. They deserve a system that works, and they deserve justice for the years of stress, uncertainty, and financial harm caused by this ongoing failure.

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