So I've been thinking about reading the Labour Law for a while. Both as a supervisor and as a payroll clerk, it interests me to know what the law actually says regarding how employees have to be treated. I'm not sure if or when I will actually do this, but today I got around to looking it up on the internet. On related websites I found some pretty interesting statistics on Alberta wages:
- The minimum wage in Alberta is $8.40 per hour.
- Only 1.3% of workers earn this (less than 20, 000 people).
- The average wage in Alberta is $24.17/hr.
It surprises me that so few people in Alberta actually earn minimum wage (despite how often we recognize that every employer has to pay much more than that to attract or retain any staff), and that the average person earns three times the required minimum wage. I guess there are as many people below the average than there are above, though. I was surprised by the statistics for other provinces as well. They're a little more moderate than Alberta, but most provinces (that had statistics listed) have a minimum wage between $7.75 and $9.50 and an average wage around $20.00, with much less than 10% earning only the minimum. (Also, some other provinces institute a lower minimum wage for youths or for people with no work experience!) Although the numbers seem generous to me, I wonder how far people are actually able to stretch that amount of money. For me, I live comfortably with what I get paid, but I live conservatively. Maybe more people than I thought are in a similar boat.
Source: Work Rights
No comments:
Post a Comment