About 10,000 federal public servants have applied for the government’s early retirement program, launched as part of a plan to cut the number of bureaucrats. In December, the government began sending letters with information on the program to about 68,000 public servants who may have been eligible. The deadline to apply was last week and, as of Tuesday, 10,006 applications had been received. Rola Salem, a spokesperson for the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, said in an email this month the decision to retire is a personal one and the department didn’t have a specific target for early retirements. Mohammad Kamal, spokesperson for Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali, says more than 6,855 applicants have met the eligibility criteria and that number will grow as more applications move through the review process.