The Phoenix pay system and intention to quit the federal public service

The Phoenix pay system has been mired by an unending string of problems negatively affecting hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats and costing billions of dollars to fix. This article studies whether Phoenix’s negative consequences might also be weakening a core component of good governance: a permanent public service. Using data from the 2017 Public Service Employee Survey, this article finds that the greater the problems an employee has endured from Phoenix, the more likely they are to intend to quit the public service. Signifying a potential loss of future talent for the federal public service, this relationship is particularly pronounced among younger and more educated public servants.