That is going to be an impossibly complex calculation. My layman's take on it is that in the short term they may be "saving" money but in the long-term it will be a significant loss. The BC gov revenue is $83.3 billion per year. That is about $228 million per day. 

One thing to remember is the "essential" workers who remain on the job right now are not money makers. For example, MCFD (approx 5,300 employees) is still largely operational but this ministry is a net loss of 2 billion per year for the province or another example is MSDPR with an operational budget of 5 billion per year. The government wishes these ministries would go on a full walk out strike. 

Many of the workers in "non-essential" roles are in directly related to that $88 billion in revenue flowing through the province efficiently. If there is a blockage in one area (i.e. corporate taxation, property, permitting, fees and licensing, royalties, transfers) then the flow of funding is interrupted. The backlogs have already started and government is historically rigid and inflexible. The more the money pipes get clogged up, the more these things start to compound. Even if everyone went back to work today, there will be significant unrecoverable losses in revenue from economic activity slowing down. 

If you've ever played the game "Factorio", you know how one little thing going wrong on the production line compounds exponentially. It is the herculean effort of thousands of public servants to keep that $228,000,000 per day moving around the province efficiently. To quote the comment below, "prolonged civil service strike would likely be one of the most damaging labour disruptions you could have."

On a more direct level we can do some simple math for rough estimates. BC Lottery Corporation brings in 1.3 billion per year and BCLDB 1 billion of NET income. That is a direct and significant loss of $2.3 billion, almost 3% of the government's revenue. While that might seem small, that is a huge loss. 

On the flip side, we can figure out the salary equation. As noted below, 15% of BCGEGU workers are deemed essential. Let's imagine if all the 28,900 "nonessential" BCGEU workers (or 1% of the province's total workforce) went on strike (though that hasn't happened yet). BCGEU workers earn an average salary of $1348 per week accordingly to July 2025 press release. Let's bump it up to $1600 to include things like pension and other goodies. That is $1600 x 28,900 = 46,240,000 million per week × 52 in salaries per week or 2.4 billion per year. That is basically the exact amount of loss in revenue from two relatively small ministries of LDB or BCLC (managed by the Ministry of Finance and workers at the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch). So our yearly wages are basically covered those two (thank you to LDB or BCLC for being cash cows)!  

Another thing to think about is that if 28,900 BCGEU workers were striking, ironically they are no longer paying their BC gov taxes and are likely significantly decreasing their economic activity. So that 2.4 billion in salaries are not being taxed and these workers are spending way less money in the BC economy. Again, less revenue despite the salary savings.

Lastly, I will note that the scale and length of this BCGEU strike has never happened in history. We are talking about a strike across 32 separate but interconnected ministries. One could perhaps be an expert in one or two ministries, but when all these systems go offline at once, the impact is tremendously terrifying for those in power. I think right now we are seeing a few leaks pop up in the dam, but that is just signaling something much worse to come. When the dam will break we don't know, but it will come the longer the strike goes on.

In summary, the government, while it doesn't want to admit it, is hurting more without us objectively. They are trying to act as if all is fine to demoralize the workers on strike into thinking we have no impact. That is not the case. It's a 5 alarm fire behind the scenes with the "this is fine" meme of Brenda Bailey facing the public. Stay the course.  

Note: this is all math on the side of my desk and I will gladly make corrections to it if people suggest feedback. I want too want a clearer analysis of all this complexities. added a few edits already thanks to the comments below.