The Nunavut government has recently banned the hiring of agency social workers on short-term contracts, raising concerns that the move could burn out the territory's remaining social workers.

CBC News has obtained an internal notice recently sent by the Department of Health and Social Services, informing senior staff that it won't be hiring more social workers from agencies outside Nunavut to work in the territory on short-term vacancies.

All agency social workers currently in Nunavut will complete their contracts, but the department is cancelling arrangements with those who are scheduled to come in, according to the notice. As well, no other agency workers will be hired to fill the vacancies.

"There's no plan at all [on] what next step they're going to do," Igloolik Mayor Paul Quassa, who heads up the Nunavut Association of Municipalities, told CBC News on Monday.

"It's like a hammer hitting the communities."

Given high instances of suicide, addictions and abuse in many Nunavut communities, Quassa said social workers are a necessity. Some communities don't even have a social worker to turn to for help, he added.

News of the ban on agency social workers also alarmed the Nunavut Employees Union, which represents territorial government employees. President Doug Workman said Nunavut's existing social workers are already overworked.

"This has just quadrupled the files that people are going to be held accountable and responsible for, and I don't find that making any sense at all," he said.

The union has long opposed the hiring of agency and contract employees, but Workman said the department's move came too quickly and without consultation.

"The one thing that's missing here is an initiative, some discussion on what they should be doing in place of what they've been doing," he said.

"It's nice that they're correcting it … but we haven't seen any strategies. There's been no talk with me, and all they got to do is phone me. I'm available."

Department officials have not responded to CBC News' request for comment.