Shortage of cyber experts at Canada’s CSE

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE, Canada’s federal agency in charge of electronic intelligence) is facing a “major personnel crisis” according to former employees speaking to Radio Canada on October 11, 2023. When pressed for comments, Caroline Xavier, head of the CSE, recognized there were recruiting difficulties.

Nonetheless she clarified these issues were not specific to the agency, as cyber experts are in particularly high demand across the labor market. The CSE workforce actually grew between March 31, 2020, and March 31, 2023, going from 2,900 to 3,232 fulltime employees.

Yet, according to former agents, the crisis is mostly qualitative. “I’ve seen several colleagues leave (…). They say no one is irreplaceable, but I feel like some guys truly were irreplaceable. I suppose this is a problem,” explains one of them.

Rather than discuss the skillset of employees who have left the CSE, Caroline Xavier prefers to applaud the quality of recent hires. According to her, several new agents are “showing longtime employees specializations, technical aspects that even they have never seen.”

Former CSE employees point to two significant obstacles in the agency’s hiring capabilities. The first: a salary scale that, albeit high, remains lower than the private sector’s. The second: a hiring process they deem too lengthy. Each future agent is the subject of a thorough background check that lasts between six and twelve months, which discourages many applicants who, tired of waiting, end up going into the private sector.