Median hourly wages

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Alberta's booming labour market associated with the highest median wage

• In 2007, the minimum hourly wage was above $8 in every province of Canada except Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. About 2.4% of employees in the ten provinces earned wages lower than the provincial legal minimum because of the type of job they had and existing legislation.

• The proportion of employees paid less than $8 an hour in 2007 constant dollars has been shrinking since 1997. Despite a jump of 4 percentage points in the early 2000s, particularly in Quebec and Ontario, the proportion fell by 1.6 percentage points from 1997 to 2007.

• In contrast, proportionally fewer employees earned from $20 to $29.99 an hour in 2007 than in 1997, while the proportion of employees earning $30 or more climbed 4.7 percentage points to 17.8%. The increase, which was larger than for any other wage group, was mainly due to more employees earning from $30 to $39.99.

• The median wage in Canada has been on an upward trend since 2003. In 2007, one out of two employees was earning less than $18.00 an hour. Alberta and British Columbia had the highest median hourly wages, at $19.67 and $19.00, respectively.

• Alberta enjoyed a much larger increase in the median wage in 2007 constant dollars than any other Canadian province from 1997 to 2007. As a result, Alberta caught up to British Columbia, the only province whose median hourly wage declined from 1997 to 2007 (from $19.73 to $19.00). While British Columbia's median hourly wage increased by $0.60 from 2006 to 2007, it is too early to say that it is a trend reversal. In Quebec, the median hourly wage remained fairly steady during the period, hovering between $16.72 and $17.00.

Chart J.2
Median hourly wages of employees, by province of residence, 1997, 2002 and 2007

Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey.