Yesterday, Alberta premier, Jason Kenney, tweeted out that the average weekly earnings in Alberta increased by $40 compared to a week ago.
So, I thought I’d dig into the numbers.
His tweet references data from the Alberta Economics Dashboard, which itself cites Statistics Canada table 14-10-0203-01, “Average weekly earnings by industry”.
The first thing I’m going to point out is that this data hasn’t been adjusted for seasonality. I’ll address that in just a bit.
Anyhow, if we compare this data for Alberta, we see that in November 2021 (the most recent data available) the average wage in Alberta was $1,241.94 per week, which is up $38.22 from November 2020, when it was $1,203.72 a week.
That’s a 3.18% increase.
So, I guess he’s kind of right about the $40 figure, depending on how you round up your numbers.
Keep in mind, however, that this increase includes overtime pay.
When we exclude overtime pay, weekly wages increase from $1,159.37 in November 2020 to $1,190.61 a year later. That’s an increase of $31.24, or 2.69%.
If we break that down by the hour, that’s about an additional 78¢ an hour.
Here are the 5 industries with the largest weekly wage increases in dollar figures, including overtime pay.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forestry, logging and support | $1,269.46 | $1,585.03 | $315.57 |
| Mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction | $2,245.70 | $2,489.48 | $243.78 |
| Utilities | $2,000.08 | $2,178.55 | $178.47 |
| Construction | $1,532.20 | $1,660.35 | $128.15 |
| Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services | $960.35 | $1,052.95 | $92.60 |
They’re also the 5 industries with the large percentage increase over the last year, albeit in a different order.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forestry, logging and support | $1,269.46 | $1,585.03 | 24.86% |
| Mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction | $2,245.70 | $2,489.48 | 10.86% |
| Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services | $960.35 | $1,052.95 | 9.64% |
| Utilities | $2,000.08 | $2,178.55 | 8.92% |
| Construction | $1,532.20 | $1,660.35 | 8.36% |
Here are the 5 industries with the largest weekly wage increases in dollar figures, excluding overtime pay.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forestry, logging and support | $1,140.85 | $1,469.88 | $329.03 |
| Mining, quarrying, oil & gas extraction | $2,104.84 | $2,298.75 | $193.91 |
| Utilities | $1,868.22 | $2,009.09 | $140.87 |
| Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services | $929.17 | $1,016.12 | $86.95 |
| Construction | $1,397.23 | $1,477.45 | $80.22 |
Oh, it’s the same industries. And here they are with their percentage-based increases.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forestry, logging and support | $1,140.85 | $1,469.88 | 28.84% |
| Administrative and support, waste management and remediation services | $929.17 | $1,016.12 | 9.36% |
| Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction | $2,104.84 | $2,298.75 | 9.21% |
| Utilities | $1,868.22 | $2,009.09 | 7.54% |
| Construction | $1,397.23 | $1,477.45 | 5.74% |
And now the 5 industries that saw the lowest increases and the highest decreases. First, here they are including overtime wages.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Management of companies and enterprises | $1,929.95 | $1,829.00 | -$100.95 | -5.23% |
| Wholesale trade | $1,489.10 | $1,449.88 | -$39.22 | -2.63% |
| Health care and social assistance | $1,036.86 | $1,006.66 | -$30.20 | -2.91% |
| Finance and insurance | $1,491.28 | $1,491.00 | -$0.28 | -0.02% |
| Other services (except public administration) | $1,017.21 | $1,022.78 | $5.57 | 0.55% |
And here they are without overtime wages.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wholesale trade | $1,446.27 | $1,405.43 | -$40.84 | -2.82% |
| Health care and social assistance | $1,014.04 | $982.11 | -$31.93 | -3.15% |
| Management of companies and enterprises | $1,810.33 | $1,795.63 | -$14.70 | -0.81% |
| Finance and insurance | $1,484.18 | $1,480.33 | -$3.85 | -0.26% |
| Arts, entertainment and recreation | $695.44 | $704.43 | $8.99 | 1.29% |
Now, luckily, when Statistics Canada updated Table 14-10-0203-01 last week, they also updated Table:14-10-0222-01, which includes seasonally adjusted data. Unfortunately, it’s not broken down by industry.
Even so, when we look at seasonally adjusted data, we find that in November 2020, weekly wages averaged $1,195.59. A year later, they averaged $1,231.81. That’s an increase of $36.22 a week, or about 3.03%.
Here’s how it breaks down for salaried and hourly workers.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | $922.95 | $925.13 | $2.18 | 0.24% |
| Salaried | $1,554.45 | $1,638.48 | $84.03 | 5.41% |
It seems like most of that increase Kenney was talking about went to salaried employees. Hourly employees are making, on average, a little more than 2 bucks more a week than they were a year ago.
2 bucks a week.
Statistics Canada also provides average hourly earnings for the same two groups. Here’s how those break down.
| Nov 2020 | Nov 2021 | Change | % change | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hourly | $28.89 | $29.04 | $0.15 | 0.52% |
| Salaried | $42.09 | $44.16 | $2.07 | 4.92% |
So, while salaried workers are making $2.07 an hour more than they were at the end of 2020, hourly workers are making only 15¢ an hour more, an increase of only about half a percent.
Meanwhile, inflation in Alberta in November 2021 was 4.3%.
