Skip to main content

Management wage increases dwarf others

Earlier I noted that while the provincial government was imposing concessions (and, yes, of course, wage freezes) on unionized public sector workers, the Conference Board of Canada was predicting 2.7% increases for non-union employees in Ontario in 2013 (up from 2.6% actual increases in 2012).

Now, Statistics Canada data suggests this may be part of a long term trend.  Data in a new report indicates that in Canada between 1998 and 2011 the hourly wages of full time management occupations went up 34.7% in real terms (i.e. after accounting for inflation).  

The rest did much worse.  "Health occupations" saw a 3.8% real increase.  That is about a quarter of one percent per year -- management occupations did about  nine times better.  "Social Sciences, education, and government service" did worse still with a 2.5% increase over the 13 years. 

Worst of all? "Occupations unique to processing, manufacturing, and utilities" at 1.5%. 

Outside of management, "occupations unique to primary industries" increased the most at 15% (driven, reportedly by increasing demand for commodities like oil and copper). 

Median hourly wages
1998
2011
Change
(In 2010 dollars)
(In 2010 dollars)
%
Management occupations
24.87
33.5
34.7
Business, finance, and administrative occupations
19.14
19.86
3.8
Natural sciences, applied sciences, and related
26.17
29.79
13.8
Health occupations
22.97
23.84
3.8
Social sciences, education, government service
26.64
27.32
2.5
Sales and service occupations
13.72
14.52
5.9
Trades, transport, and equipment operators
20.42
21.3
4.3
Occupations unique to primary industry
14.04
16.14
15
Occupations unique to processing, manufacturing, and utilities
17.03
17.24
1.2

Gross Domestic Product per capita increased 18.6% in real terms from July 1998 to July 2011, so obviously someone was getting a significant increase.  Apparently that included managers (whose percentage hourly wage increase was almost double the percentage growth in per capita GDP).  

But health care workers, government employees, and education workers (i.e. targets of government austerity) have fallen far behind.

I'm sometimes accused of providing nothing but bad news.  So the good news? Unionized workers (public and private) did a little better.  According to other Stats Can data drawing on the Labour Force Survey, full time, unionized men saw wages increase 6.5% in real terms, while full time, unionized women saw an 11.4% increase. That doesn't keep pace with the growth in the economy, and still falls well short of management wage increases, but it is better than many other workers have seen.

Photo:  laverrue
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Too many public sector workers in Ontario?

Opponents of public services often try to portray the public sector as having grown disproportionately.  In fact, since 1976, the number of public sector employees has not quite kept pace with the population. In 1976, the number of public sector employees in Ontario  as reported by Statistics Canada averaged 830,800.  By 2012, the number had increased to 1,330,700 -- a 60.2% increase.  That sounds like significant growth -- true. But the population has increased  from 8,413,779 in 1976 to 13,505,900 in 2012, a 60.5% increase.   In other words, population growth has run slightly ahead of the growth in public sector employment.     In 1976, close to 10% of the population worked in the public sector.  It stayed pretty much this way until the Mike Harris government came to power when it dipped below 9%.  It returned close to the historical range in the last six years or so, declining in 2012 to below the 1976 averag...
16 comments
Read more

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data.   This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization.   Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion.  That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year.   The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million.     In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more