The Nova Scotia government called Thursday's federal budget a stand-pat document that leaves federal transfer payments alone.

Deputy Premier Frank Corbett said Thursday that the budget acknowledges the worsening financial situation faced by all provincial governments in the country these days, and he's just happy that federal transfer payments were not cut.

In 2009-10, Nova Scotia will receive $1.5 billion in transfer payments from Ottawa.

"Well, I guess in some ways you would always like to see the federal government continue to spend more money, but clearly they decided that was the extent they wanted to go to," Corbett said Thursday.

"Again, we'd always like more money, but we understand it."

The reaction to the federal budget by Nova Scotia labour and community groups was largely negative.

Many gathered Thursday at a Halifax hotel to listen to the budget speech delivered by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty in the House of Commons.

Rick Clarke, president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour, said he was disappointed by the lack of job creation, especially when it comes to young people in the province.

"There's been a huge drop in opportunities for youth, and we're having concerns on how we're keeping our youth in the region," he said. "And likely it's going to be a concern now on how do we keep them in the country because there's really nothing in there to deal with that."

Child-care advocates were also frustrated with the federal budget.

Karen Wright, who represents child-care workers with the Canadian Union of Public Employees, said that frustration stems from the federal government ignoring child-care issues in the budget.

"It shows that investing in child-care invests in Canadian jobs. It invests in jobs that stay in the community, they're green jobs," Wright said.

"People work within the community, they spend their money within the community and the dollar investment is more than double what the federal government puts in."

The Council of Canadians said the Conservative government has also let down people concerned with the state of the environment.

Andrea Harden-Donahue, the council's national environmental campaigner, said there was barely a mention about the environment or creating green jobs.

"Really, it's surprising because this is the way the world is moving. Now, we need to review the budget and see what numbers are going where, but certainly from the speech itself, there's no indication that this is a priority for the government," Harden-Donahue said.

The country's main student group came away shaking its head after listening to the federal finance minister present his budget.

Rebecca Rose, the Maritime representative for the Canadian Federation of Students, said Ottawa missed an opportunity to deal with a crisis most post-secondary students are facing.

"What they really should have been doing in this budget is investing in post-secondary education through a dedicated transfer fund to the provinces, making sure that universities and colleges are accessible for people who are going through the system, especially people who are going back to get retrained during the recession," Rose said.