Over the last year ending this September wages in Canada rose a mere 1.1 per cent according to figures from Statistics Canada. This is the smallest increase since November of 2009.
Although the average showed a small increase over the year, September average weekly earnings of non-farm workers actually declined by .3 per cent. This is just the nominal decrease and does not take into account that the inflation rate was 3.2 per for the month. Average weekly wages have been declining since April when they reached a peak of 4.1 per cent.
The uncertain economic outlook may lead to a lessening demand for increased wages as many workers are happy enough just to have work. The government points out that 600,000 jobs have been created since the recession. However the other side of this story is that almost a million more have entered the labor market. Unemployment remains at 7.3 per cent. This is a large reserve army of the unemployed that will also keep wages low. For much more see this article.
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