New analysis shows that a majority of Canadians are seeing diminishing incomes due to inflation levels that are higher than their wage gains.
According to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), wages rose by only 2.7% over the past two years, while inflation grew by 3.4% annually.
Throughout the labour market, inflation-adjusted pay growth was in the red, including in the education and healthcare sectors.
In February of this year, Canada’s inflation level hit 5.7% – the highest it’s been in 30 years. Economists predict that the inflation level will steadily increase, due to sanctions on Russia and other world events.
“We’re just not seeing wage gains anywhere near the rate of inflation,” said CCPA senior economist David Macdonald. “It may be that workers have yet to catch up to the fact that inflation is high, and that they should start asking for higher wage gains on a year-to-year basis.”
A few industries did see wage growth higher than inflation including real estate and the information sector.
“At this point, employers are probably interested in retaining their employees because it’d be hard to find new ones,” Macdonald said. “And that puts more power into the hands of workers, particularly workers with more tenure.”
As recently reported by True North, a record number of public sector executives were hired during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic who are now demanding that taxpayers pay them more.
The Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada (APEX) recently lobbied the federal government for higher salaries and better working conditions. In the last few years the number of executives working for the government has grown by 21%.
“Levels of frustration, beyond what has ever been seen before in the executive community, are being measured,” APEX CEO Carl Trottier wrote to Fortier.
“A record number of executives are asking APEX how to be demoted out of the executive cadre stating pay inversion and disrespect by the employer as the main causes.”
Despite their six-figure salaries, federal executives complained that some of their specialist employees were making more than they were.
