Problems with the federal government's Phoenix pay system continue to cause headaches for more than half of all federal public servants.

The Ministry of Public Services and Procurement revealed Thursday a total of 607,000 cases are still pending at the pay centre in Miramichi, N.B.

Despite investments now approaching $1 billion to launch it, then try to fix it, the situation is stagnating.

As of May 2, approximately 372,000 cases that have immediate consequences on the salaries of civil servants were still pending.

The exact number of files changes daily and the pay centre estimates that more than half of all federal employees have a pay problem, regardless of whether they are clients of the centre.

Pending cases:

452,000 have financial implications for public servants.

101,000 have no financial impact.

14,000 are related to collective agreements.

40,000 must be closed.

The government's latest budget included $16 million to find a replacement for the pay system.

In the meantime, the government is changing the workflow of its Phoenix support workers in Miramichi to a "pay pod" model where troubleshooters are assigned to specific departments.