Public service cuts hit Ottawa hardest

More than 2,000 federal employees in the Ottawa-Gatineau region received redundancy notices Wednesday, which means their jobs could be cut.

Employees who receive letters, and whose jobs are considered "surplus" positions, have 120 days to either choose to stay for a year, take early retirement if they are 55 years oldand over, take a buyout package or take a buyout package and reimbursement for educational expenses.

The overall mood among federal government workers was very gloomy.

"I have friends that found out today they got cut and I've know them for thirty years," one worker, who did not want their name used in fear of their employment, told CBC News. "It's like a funeral."

Some Ottawa workers went home after receiving the letters because they became emotional, their co-workers said.

The notices were handed out in many different departments. The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) said a total of 2,225 of their members got notices in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

Here is the breakdownwhere some of those notices were handedout:

The government is trying to eliminate more than 19,000 jobs across Canada over the next three years. More than 5,500notices were handed outacross Canada.

PSACwarned the job cutnumbers could be higher.