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The Canadian Labour Market at a Glance
Distribution of hourly wages
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People aged 30 to 39 have the highest median hourly wages
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More men than women have high hourly wages. In 2007, men had a median wage of $20.00 an hour, $3.63 more than women. The median hourly wage gap between men and women shrank from 2000 to 2004. Since then, it has been fairly stable.
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In 2007, Canadian employees aged 30 to 59—two-thirds of employees—had the highest median hourly wage ($20.51). In contrast, people aged 15 to 24 and those aged 65 and over had the lowest median wages, at $10.00 and $14.00, respectively.
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To reduce the impact that age has on the observed differences in hourly wages, we use the group of people aged 25 to 54, the core-age for the labour force, as a benchmark. For that group, wages increase with the number of years of education completed. Despite a median wage of about $26, nearly one in seven employees with a university degree earned less than $12 an hour in 2007. However, that proportion has been declining since 2005.
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Partly because of the rising minimum wage, employees with the lowest median wage ($14.00)—that is, employees with a Grade 8 education or less—had the largest increases in median hourly wages in 2007.
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From 1997 to 2007, employees with an education above the bachelor's level experienced a 1.8% decline in their median wage in 2007 constant dollars, though they still had a higher median wage than any other education group, at $29.12. This decrease was accompanied by a drop in the employment rate; in other words, employment growth did not keep pace with population growth.
Chart J.3
Distribution of the population aged 25 to 54, by hourly wage and level of education, 2007
Source: Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey.
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