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.

  • @asterfield
    32•8 months ago

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

    • @[email protected]
      3•8 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.