Aiming Upwards: Canada in Q3 2011 PayScale Index
By Bridget Quigg, PayScale.com
Canada has certainly seen celebrity excitement this year. Royal newlyweds Princess Catherine and Prince William toured through in April and now teen idol and Canadian native Justin Bieber has brought his starlet girlfriend Selena Gomez to Winnipeg for some serious romancing. What more excitement can Canada take? How about a continuing upward trend in national wages? We, here at PayScale, think that is biggest news for Canada this year, but we’re biased. Does The PayScale Index beat out Bieber? Absolutely.
Facts About Canadian Wages
The PayScale Index (Canada) follows the change in wages of employed Canadian workers, revealing trends in compensation over time. It specifically measures the quarterly change in the total cash compensation of full-time, private industry employees nationally.
While not great, the Canadian national results from The PayScale Index are good. And, they are certainly better than results for some U.S. industries and cities followed by the Index, and the U.S. as a whole.
In Q3 2011, wages in Canada continued their steady, slow upward trend that began in early 2010. Nationally, Q3 was only up slightly over Q2, but earnings are up a solid 1.1 percent over a year earlier, easily beating the U.S. 0.4 percent.
Before the recession hit in late 2008, wages were growing in Canada at a healthy rate of 3 to 4 percent year-over-year in 2007 and 2008. When wages finally tumbled in 2009, they did so for a brief three quarters, and only fell about 1 percent. As the recession began to ease up at the end of 2009, earnings for Canadian workers recovered swiftly. Incomes for Canadians showed significant improvement throughout 2010, a significantly better story than in the United States.
The PayScale Index for Canada
The following charts show the year-over-year and quarterly results nationwide for Canada in The PayScale Index.
| The PayScale Index uses 2006 average total cash compensation as a baseline. |  | National (CA) | |
Related Posts:
Are you wasting company time in your meetings? Calculate the cost of your meetings with PayScale’s Meeting Miser.
Do you have a topic you would like Compensation Today to cover? Write us at comptoday@payscale.com.
More Resources from PayScale: