Average hourly wages among Canadian employees rose to $34.95 on a year-over-year basis in April, a 4.7 per cent increase, according to a Statistics Canada report released Friday morning.

Canada’s economy added five times the number of jobs that were forecast for April and the unemployment rate unexpectedly held at 6.1 per cent, but wages grew at the slowest pace in 10 months, data showed on Friday.

The economy added a net 90,400 jobs while analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a gain of 18,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to rise to 6.2 per cent.

The gains - largest since the 110,000 jobs added in January 2023 - were a mix of part-time and full-time work, and entirely in the services-producing industries, data from Statistics Canada showed.

  • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
    36·
    6 months ago

    The gains - largest since the 110,000 jobs added in January 2023 - were a mix of part-time and full-time work, and entirely in the services-producing industries, data from Statistics Canada showed.

    I can almost guarantee you that very few (if any) service industry jobs are paying $34.95 per hour.

    • OminousOrange@lemmy.ca
      12·
      6 months ago

      The $34.95/hr average is stated as the average for permanent positions. I doubt many of the service industry jobs are permanent positions.

      • Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca
        2·
        6 months ago

        Most are in my experience. Permanent position really just means there’s no pre-arranged end date for the position as opposed to say covering a maternity leave where you’ve been specifically given that position for just until the permanent employee comes back. Unless otherwise negotiated any permanent employee can be let go with 2 weeks(depending on provincial regulations) notice.

    • Windex007@lemmy.world
      7·
      6 months ago

      “The gains” in your quote (when taken in a fuller context) is referring to number of jobs added. It’s not related to the average hourly wage.

      • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
        81·
        6 months ago

        I understand that. I was simply commenting on the fact that probably none of those service industry jobs provide the average wage reported by StatsCan in the same article.

    • wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works
      71·
      6 months ago

      I can almost guarantee you that very few (if any) service industry jobs are paying $34.95 per hour.

      Even if it was, it means that two full time average salaries aren’t even enough to buy a less than average dwelling in any Canadian cities.

    • kent_eh@lemmy.caEnglish
      3·
      6 months ago

      I can almost guarantee you that very few (if any) service industry jobs are paying $34.95 per hour.

      And if they are, those aren’t anywhere near full time hours.

    • asterfield@lemmy.world
      32·
      6 months ago

      Very high paying jobs may skew this number. Median wage is probably the more useful way to look at country level pay

      • Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca
        3·
        6 months ago

        Could also be skewed the other way if it’s only about wage and not total compensation. Higher paid positions tend to also have good benefits like healthcare, vacation time, pensions, etc. that are on top of the stated wage. Lower wage positions often don’t have those same benefits.

    • SapientLasagna@lemmy.ca
      8·
      6 months ago

      For a concrete example of what @asterfield@lemmy.world said, if there are 10 workers, and 9 of them are making minimum wage ($17.40 in BC), then the remaining worker would make $192.90/hr. $1772.40/hr if 99/100 make minimum wage.

      Median is definitely the better measure, though no single measure is adequate to answer the question of whether Canadians are better off than they were last year.

    • Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca
      3·
      6 months ago

      In MediaSpinLand: The Happiest Place in the World!!*

      *based of philosophical conjecture that suffering is the requisite to even experiencing contentment. Happiest, and World are both trademarks of the Viacom Company

  • Phil_in_here@lemmy.ca
    71·
    6 months ago

    In other news, Canadians average fewer limbs than typical humans but enjoy 4 square kilometers of land per person!

    Subscribe for more accurate and intentionally misleading statistics.