'You'll feel it in 30 years': How City of Vancouver layoffs could impact the city
Last fall, Vancouver City Council passed a contentious 2026 city budget, notable because it had a zero per cent increase in property taxes but cuts to several City departments.
At the time of voting it through, Vancouver Mayor Sim called it “back to basics.”
“This budget focuses on public safety and affordability while prioritizing the City’s frontline services, including road and sidewalk maintenance, garbage pickup, parks and recreation, and infrastructure renewal,” Sim said in a post on X.
Sean Orr, a city councillor who voted against the budget, accused Sim of a “political stunt.”
“It’s an election year. Ken Sim had three years to try and figure out where to make efficiencies. And sure, I’m all for finding efficiencies, but they need to be sort of surgical cuts. You can’t sort of take a chainsaw across the board. And the timing of this just seems like it’s an election gimmick,” he said to Daily Hive Urbanized.
Meanwhile, some of the departments taking the biggest hits include Civic Theatres (12 per cent) and Planning, Urban Design and Sustainability (14 per cent).
But even departments that received smaller budget cuts will still face consequences. For example, the engineering department, which had just a one per cent cut, has already had layoffs.
Because it’s such a large department, a one per cent cut ($800,000) amounts to six to eight full-time staff, according to a blog post from Vision Zero Vancouver, a road safety advocacy organization. And it doesn’t account for salary growth and inflation, which staff estimate a five to seven per cent property tax increase is needed to meet the city’s existing costs.
As of Feb. 6, 2026, the City of Vancouver confirmed to Daily Hive Urbanized that “there have been 40 exempt staff departures related to the budget from several City departments.”
Daily Hive Urbanized interviewed an engineer who was part of a wave of layoffs in December 2025, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
investigating what additional transportation would be needed after a new development was built — things like bike lanes, bike parking, bus stops, and programs to encourage people to take transit.
“I think positions like mine are ones that don’t impact this council term,” they said.
“All of these dramatic changes are great headlines, and they’re a great political platform. But they’re so disruptive. And it looks really good, but it actually causes a lot of turmoil, from a staff perspective, and it just slows a lot of other things down.”
‘Slow things down’
The engineer said that they had seen their layoff coming, as the current City Council has put an emphasis on efficiency and cutting red tape. They understand the rationale behind it.
“A lot of City processes can become very complex very quickly, when there’s a lot of different departments, they all overlap and intertwine, and it can be impossible to keep track of all the requirements,” they said.
With the housing market downturn, tariffs, rising cost of construction and inflation, new builds are being priced out.
“It’s just not economical anymore for developers to take on these projects when the City has a million and one requirements. And our permit fees are quite high,” they said. “And so there had been direction to staff to make it easier to develop in the city, make it cheaper to develop in the city.”
But the former city staffer is still concerned about the City’s decision to lay off engineers. Now, there’s less staff but the same amount of work, and they’re worried about “a reduction in quality caused by the pressure to be fast.”
“We’re going to continue to try to do the same work, just with fewer people. And the people that remain are — rightly so — pretty grumpy. Morale is low,” they said.
At the same time, they said that engineers can’t “push through and cut some corners.”
“Analysis needs to be done. Checks and balances need to be completed. Documentation is not just important, it’s mandated by the government through the provincial government governance act.”
They said they think it will “slow things down for a while.”
Long-term impacts
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The engineer said their work was long-term focused, so they doubt their job loss will be felt “walking around the streets today or tomorrow.”
Instead, they believe it will be felt in the years and decades to come.
“You’ll feel it in 30 years when buildings are full of parking spots and don’t have any access to bike parking, and everybody’s driving, and the streets are polluted, and there’s congestion and traffic. And when we are trying to adapt around the climate change that has happened.”
For example, the popular bike lanes on Burrard Bridge were named the busiest cycling route in North America in 2018.
But in 2009, when the City removed a vehicle lane from the bridge to add the bike lanes, they were very controversial. People were worried it would clog up the bridge and slow down traffic downtown, the engineer said.
“And then it happened, and it was okay,” the engineer continued.
“And the only reason that project was able to happen was because people were willing to take the risk. And nobody’s willing to take that risk right now, because you’ll just get fired.”
Concerns about safe streets
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Ruofan Wang, a volunteer with Vision Zero Vancouver, has similar concerns.
In the blog post that Vision Zero Vancouver published before the layoffs, it noted that the staff were already struggling to make improvements.
“I think staff need strong political leadership, like they need to know that their council has their back when trying to implement road safety measures that could have a level of controversy,” said Wang.
With fewer staff, he said the City doesn’t have the same capacity to improve road safety by installing things like safer pedestrian crossings, active transportation lanes, and better street plazas.
While he gave credit to City Council for directing staff to look at creating more permanent street plazas, traffic calming initiatives, and making roads safer, he said these were all “things that the very senior staff they fired in December were working on.”
“In December, we saw a first round of layoffs in engineering that were targeted very heavily at safe streets,” he said. “We’re actually really disappointed to see how much such a small cut has ravaged the public service, and how there’s still several rounds of layoffs to go.”
In a statement sent to Daily Hive Urbanized, the City of Vancouver said they are working “through organizational and operational changes that reflect Council priorities, service delivery needs and workforce transitions. As part of this process, some departments are undergoing adjustments that include changes to staffing levels.”