Statistics Canada recently released average offered hourly wage for the second quarter of 2022, and I thought I’d go through it to see how Alberta compares to other provinces.
Offered hourly wage is the hourly wage that companies are offering for vacant positions. It doesn’t include any overtime, tips, commissions or bonuses.
Before we get started, I just want to highlight this tweet from Jason Kenney, Alberta’s premier, which he posted last month.
If Alberta has the highest wages in Canada, surely we must be offering the highest wages for new hires, too, right. Well, not quite.
| BC | $25.80 |
| ON | $24.95 |
| AB | $24.10 |
| QC | $22.80 |
| SK | $22.00 |
| MB | $20.65 |
| NL | $20.60 |
| NS | $20.50 |
| NB | $20.35 |
| PEI | $19.00 |
Alberta actually comes in third place for what employers are offering their new hires per hour, on average. In fact, even though we’re in third place, we’re only 5¢ an hour above the national wage, which was $24.05.
Ontario companies, which is in second place, offers 75¢ an hours more to their new hires and first-place British Columbia offers $1.70 an hour more than an Alberta.
Compared to the first quarter, Alberta was 1 of 9 provinces that saw a drop in their average offered hourly wage.
| Q1 2022 | Q2 2022 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BC | $25.00 | $25.80 | $0.80 |
| NB | $20.45 | $20.35 | -$0.10 |
| SK | $22.15 | $22.00 | -$0.15 |
| ON | $25.10 | $24.95 | -$0.15 |
| QC | $23.15 | $22.80 | -$0.35 |
| NS | $20.90 | $20.50 | -$0.40 |
| NL | $21.45 | $20.60 | -$0.85 |
| AB | $25.00 | $24.10 | -$0.90 |
| PEI | $19.90 | $19.00 | -$0.90 |
| MB | $21.60 | $20.65 | -$0.95 |
Only companies in BC were offering more to their new hires in the second quarter than they were in the first. While Alberta wasn’t alone in having companies lower their average offered hourly wage, we were tied with PEI for second largest drop (90¢ an hour) in the country. Manitoba saw the largest drop, at 95¢.
The national change between the first and second quarter of 2022 was a drop of just 15¢, which puts Alberta’s drop at 6 times that.
Alberta improves slightly when looking at performance over the previous second quarter.
| Q2 2021 | Q2 2022 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| NB | $18.50 | $20.35 | $1.85 |
| BC | $24.00 | $25.80 | $1.80 |
| NL | $19.45 | $20.60 | $1.15 |
| ON | $23.85 | $24.95 | $1.10 |
| QC | $21.80 | $22.80 | $1.00 |
| AB | $23.10 | $24.10 | $1.00 |
| NS | $19.65 | $20.50 | $0.85 |
| SK | $21.35 | $22.00 | $0.65 |
| PEI | $18.55 | $19.00 | $0.45 |
| MB | $20.35 | $20.65 | $0.30 |
Alberta is now tied with Québec for 5th place, having seen an increase of $1.00 in the average offered hourly wage. That’s 20¢ an hour less than the national average though.
There is no data available for the second quarter of 2020, but watch what happens when we compare Q2 2022 with Q2 2019, the quarter right before the UCP government starting cutting the corporate profit tax, which they dubbed the “Job Creation Tax Cut”.
| Q2 2019 | Q2 2022 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| BC | $21.60 | $25.80 | $4.20 |
| PEI | $15.15 | $19.00 | $3.85 |
| NB | $17.20 | $20.35 | $3.15 |
| QC | $19.85 | $22.80 | $2.95 |
| ON | $22.05 | $24.95 | $2.90 |
| NS | $18.00 | $20.50 | $2.50 |
| SK | $20.20 | $22.00 | $1.80 |
| NL | $19.25 | $20.60 | $1.35 |
| MB | $19.55 | $20.65 | $1.10 |
| AB | $23.50 | $24.10 | $0.60 |
Despite the so-called Job Creation Tax Cut, Alberta saw the lowest increase in its average offered hourly wage, when compared to all the other provinces in the country.
We were the only ones who saw an increase of less than $1.00.
BC, which topped the list, saw their employers increase how much they offered their new hires, on average, by more than $4 an hour over the last 3 years.
Manitoba, which came in second-to-last place, still saw an increase of 50¢ an hour more than what Alberta companies offered.
The national average increased by $2.75 during the same period, which is more than 4.5 times higher than Alberta’s increase.
Maybe that has something to do with why Alberta was the only province to see a decrease in payroll employees during the same period.
