Ottawa Mayor Larry O'Brien is moving forward with bringing change to Ottawa City Hall with a proposal to cut 500 full-time jobs from the city's workforce and put a cap on future hires.

Corporate Services voted 10-1 in favour of the motion Tuesday afternoon.

"We're not sure where the economy's going. There are some clouds on the horizon and my business experience has indicated to me that we should be preparing for downturns and I think it's much better to do that in advance of the downturn," O'Brien told CTV Ottawa.

The motion is now set to go to council -- then it's up to the city manager to report the best areas to slash jobs, which would come from a combination of layoffs and attrition.

O'Brien says the move is necessary in order for the City to run more efficiently.

"There's people in the government, there's people in the private sector that are always worried about job security - this is a fact of life - and I think we just have to do what's right," he said.

City needs its workers, says Cullen

Critics, though, say despite Tuesday's vote of acceptance, the proposed job cuts will never make it past council or taxpayers.

"We need our public health nurses; we need our child care workers; we need our bylaw enforcement people; we need the people to plow our streets after last winter," said Coun. Alex Cullen.

"We're going to go through the whole exercise and come up with very little at the end of it. It's the same old dance."

'Virtual' city hall

O'Brien's job cut proposal comes as an e-Government report was released, calling for the City of Ottawa to curb its service costs by creating a "virtual" city hall.

"That report very clearly indicated there were some opportunities to invest in technology and reduce staff," O'Brien said.

Cuts won't include emergency workers

The mayor told CTV Ottawa it's too early to say where the job cuts might come from, but stressed they won't affect emergency service workers, which include police, paramedics and firefighters.

The plan calls for the proposed job cuts to be made by December 2009.

With a report from CTV Ottawa's Catherine Lathem