A new wage order? The story of service- and goods-producing industries and wage trends across Canada

Contents

1. Executive summary

2. Wage overview

   1. Outlook: expectations subdued with inflation, yet global tensions loom
   2. Consequences: litigation, union dynamics shape risks amid stagnant real wages

3. Salary growth across sectors

   1. Service-producing sectors: digital, finance, personal services lead services salary surge
   2. Goods-producing sectors: resources and utilities keep goods jobs high-paying, slower to grow
   3. Salary growth across industries: closing remarks

4. Salary growth across provinces

   1. Atlantic Canada (NL, NS, NB, PEI): services set the pace across the east, with oil and gas still a pay anchor
   2. Quebec: services outpace goods as bilingual tech and media roles lift salaries
   3. Ontario: tech and creative wages climb fastest while trades retain a lasting premium
   4. Manitoba and Saskatchewan (The Prairies): services advance steadily while resources and manufacturing sustain pay gaps
   5. Alberta: energy keeps wages high as services slowly close the gap
   6. British Columbia: digital and film industries fuel service growth while utilities anchor goods
   7. The Territories (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut): resource and construction roles secure Canada’s highest absolute pay levels
   8. Salary growth across provinces: closing remarks

5. Conclusion

Executive summary

Canadian wages have grown unevenly over the past decade, shaped by inflation, shifting sectoral priorities, and mounting global uncertainty. From 2015 to 2024, average industry wages, a measure of pay across all major sectors and the focus of the “Canada’s salary per industry” dashboard, rose 32 percent from $49,502 to $65,548. By contrast, the average salary of working-age Canadians increased just 3 percent from $67,400 to $69,700. Taken with inflation of 26.8 percent, most workers have seen little to no real wage growth despite apparent gains at the industry level.

The current of Canada’s labour economy is shifting course, as policy and businesses place increasing value in post-industrial sectors. In the past 10 years, service-producing sector wages have grown faster than goods-producing ones. This change was led by the information and cultural industries, finance and insurance, and other services, where the past decade’s wage growth ranged from 39 percent to 48 percent. Goods-producing sectors such as mining, construction, and utilities remain high-paying, but posted slower wage increases. This highlights the rising value of professional and digital skills, while exposing goods sectors to tighter recruitment and retention pressures.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, inflation shocks underscored these macro wage trends, and a wage-price feedback loop lifted salaries temporarily. As prices receded, so did demand for workers. Current forecasts suggest modest wage increases ahead, with small and medium-sized firms expecting only 2.1 percent wage growth in the coming year, one of the lowest outlooks since 2021. In the months ahead, wage pressures may stem less from domestic demand and more from global trade disputes and geopolitical instability, which are as unpredictable as preceding pandemic-era forces.

Provincial and territorial variations reinforce Canada’s patchwork of wage dynamics. Between 2015 and 2024, Atlantic and Prairie provinces showed strong service-side growth, while Alberta and the North remain dominated by resource-driven goods sectors. Regional wage policy differences and limited labour mobility compound these divergences, complicating national HR strategies.

These last-decade shifts carry practical consequences for employers and HR professionals. Litigation risks increase where salaries rise rapidly or where specialized workers struggle to find comparable roles. Unionized environments delay wage adjustments, creating ongoing catch-up pressures. HR leaders must balance competitive pay with compliance, workforce composition, and sector-specific pressures, all while preparing for the broader effects of trade tensions, demographic change, and productivity challenges.

This report’s overall picture of the decade is one of an economy where wage growth is concentrated in certain sectors and regions, while many Canadians experience stagnation. Businesses and HR professionals must not only track wage trends, but anticipate how global shocks, policy decisions, and labour mobility will shape compensation strategy in the years ahead.

The following report features trends uncovered in Canadian HR Reporter’s “Canadian salaries per industry” data dashboard. It is supported by interviews with leading Canadian labour economists and lawyers, namely, Simon Gaudreault, chief economist and vice-president of research at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business; Mikal Skuterud, professor of labour economics at the University of Waterloo; and Puneet Tiwari, partner with Levitt Employment and Labour Law LLP.

Wage overview

Outlook: Expectations subdued with inflation, yet global tensions loom

In the next 12 months, volatile global trade relations and other geopolitical tensions could dramatically unsettle Canada’s wage trajectory, just as pandemic-era shocks and supply disruptions drove recent surprising changes. These factors set the stage for understanding both current wage pressures, and how Canadians’ pay has shifted over the past decade.

Inflation is expected to recover from its current lows to 1.9 percent throughout Q3 2025, according to the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB). At the same time, employment levels are expected to recede between half and one percentage point. “All that means that we do not anticipate important wage increases in small and medium-sized businesses in the next several months,” said Gaudreault.

In August, the CFIB’s Monthly Business Barometer – based on a 367 CFIB member survey – reported that businesses expected a wage increase of 2.1 percent over the next 12 months. That’s also the average wage growth expectation since 2010, but nevertheless, the second-lowest expectation since June 2021.

To understand how future expectations fit into the broader picture of Canadian wage growth, we need to look back at the trajectory of Canadian wages. Since 2015, overall industry earnings climbed steadily, but the average worker saw slim gains.

Between 2015 and 2024, the average yearly wage across all of Canada’s industries rose 32 percent from $49,502 in 2015 to $65,548 in 2024. Annual growth averaged 3 percent and consistently trended upward.  

The average yearly wage across all of Canada’s industries is calculated by looking at the pay across all 19 primary sectors and finding the overall average. This number indicates how the Canadian economy is doing. When the average is higher, it means many diverse industries offer good, well-paid jobs. When the average is lower, it points to weaker job performance across diverse sectors. Over the last 10 years, the average yearly wage has risen by more than $15,000, showing steady growth in Canada’s economy.

The picture looks different when we focus on Canadian workers themselves instead of industry averages. The average worker salary measures what the typical Canadian actually earns, rather than the overall pay across different sectors. It takes into account how many people work in each industry and the wage differences between them. This means that even if some industries pay very high wages, the national average worker salary can be lower if most Canadians are employed in moderate-paying sectors. Over time, this measure shows whether people across the workforce are genuinely earning more, or if pay growth is limited to certain industries. The average industry salary, referenced above, measures pay across different sectors. 

Between 2015 and 2023, the average salary of Canadians aged 24–54 (14.5 million workers in 2015 and 15.7 million in 2023) rose only 3 percent from $67,400 to $69,700. That’s an average increase of only 0.4 percent per year, and growth wasn’t steady, with some years experiencing declines.

Taken together, Canadian industries’ average salary increased threefold (32 percent) and Canadians’ average salary increase was comparatively slim (3 percent), which shows that many Canadian workers have failed to experience the impressive salary increases of a select few industries.

Inflation is another factor to consider. Between July 2015 and 2024, prices of all Canadian goods rose 26.8 percent, according to Statistics Canada. Rising prices have effectively cancelled out any of the wage gains from the last decades for most Canadians. 

“If you have to summarize this, there’s been essentially no real wage growth [for Canadians] over this decade,” said Skuterud.

Consequently, average workers’ wages in recent year, which rose slower than the cost of goods, had a remarkable job market impact, as explained below,  which should be noted by hiring professionals and their businesses in the months ahead.

High inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic – from a perfect storm of historic government spending, supply chain shocks, post-pandemic demand and the Russia-Ukraine war – created a wage-price feedback loop: Canadian businesses increased their prices, profit margins, and number of workers to meet the market opportunity of high prices and additional profit. This higher number of workers induced high consumer spending and a feedback of additional price increases. As a result, in 2021, the average salary shot up to $70,300 – 4 percent over the previous year and the decade’s highest average.

“In this period coming out of the pandemic, it was unbelievable what was happening in labour market tightness,” said Skuterud. “The reason that was given by most commentators was that the Baby Boomers were all retiring and now there’s a labour shortage. That was completely wrong. The reason for this heightened labour shortage was that prices were increasing faster than wages.”

This is supported by July 2022’s forecasted 12-month wage increases, which peaked at 3.6 percent or 1.4 points above the historic average, according to the CFIB’s Monthly Business Barometer. As inflation fell, so did business profits and demand for workers. “[The wage growth forecast] has since been on a downward trend as inflation as receding,” said Gaudreault, reinforcing that inflation and the price-wage cycle have played a tremendous role in Canada’s recent wage history.

Looking to the future, “Now that the [US] tariff war is raging, we will have to see what kind of inflation this brings to [Canada’s] economy and what that could mean for businesses” –  their expansion of wages and employees, said Gaudreault – referring to US tariffs on Canadian exports, continued retaliatory Canadian duties, and Canada’s rollback of many counter-tariffs to ease tensions (as of reporting date).

The most recent Statistics Canada data reports July inflation at 1.7 percent year-over-year, down from 1.9 percent in June. In the near term, inflation will probably remain moderate in Canada’s small- to medium-sized business sector, said Gaudreault.

Consequences: litigation, union dynamics shape risks amid stagnant real wages

Wage movements consequently shift litigation risk, according to Tiwari. Companies with less competitive wages should avoid inciting litigation challenges – such as wrongful dismissal claims, wage and hour disputes, or otherwise – against difficult-to-replace employees, especially if wages become uncompetitive and unlikely to attract strong new applicants. This is also a concern in industries where wages have risen impressively or above historic averages, creating competition.

At the same time, “If your employees don’t make that much money, they’ll be awarded less money when they litigate against you or win, or if there’s a settlement,” said Tiwari.

Unionization across Canada has also made wages sticky and resulted in complications for wage flexibility under the aforementioned market pressures. In Canada, union coverage across all employees has historically been above 30 percent, three times greater than in the US, according to Statistics Canada. The rates, however, vary sharply by sector. In 2024, about 76 percent of public sector workers were unionized compared with only 15 percent in the private sector. Unionization also differs between industries, standing at 31 percent in service-producing jobs and 25 percent in goods-producing jobs, the latter having steadily declined over time.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, while other Canadians’ wages increased because of inflation, “unionized workers were struggling more to keep up with inflation than non-unionized workers,” said Skuterud. The reason was that unionized professionals had to wait for contract renegotiation periods.

“So, you’re going to see catch-up happening” for wages in unionized workspaces, he said. “It is probably still happening and will continue to happen over the next few years. Part of the [wage] variation across industries is related to how unionized these industries are, and to what extent wages or salaries are determined by collective agreement.”

Salary growth across sectors

Under inflation and consumer behaviour outlined above and since 2015, certain sectors have emerged as salary-change winners and losers. Canada’s economic and regional policy priorities have played a notable role in growth and recession. Each industry, and its HR professionals, should consider their unique salary position along with the consequences and trends outlined above and in the following industry-specific analysis.

Between 2015 and 2024, three of all 19 sectors experienced relative salary growth of five percentage points greater than all sectors average growth – five percentage points greater than 32 percent, as the average salary across industries rose from $49,502 in 2015 to $65,548 in 2024. Those high-salary growth sectors were information and cultural industries (+48 percent); “other service” establishments providing repair, laundry services, religious, civic, professional, and similar activities (+40 percent); and finance and insurance (+39 percent).

Nine of all 19 sectors experienced relative salary growth above all 19 sectors’ average. Of those nine sectors, in 2015, three also began with above-average salaries. These were the information; finance; and professional, scientific, and technical services sectors – the last of which grew 33 percent. This is to say that, in the last decade, each of these three professionalized Canadian sectors experienced the success of high relative wage growth, unimpeded by a high starting position.

Finally, the real estate, rental, and leasing sector is unique as the only sector that had below-average salaries ($48,850 in 2015) 10 years ago and experienced above average salaries ($65,787 in 2024) last year. At the granular job level, “other professional, scientific, and technical services” is the only other role that has achieved this emergence. These “other professional service” salaries rose 47 percent from $47,834 in 2015 to $70,499 in 2024 by riding the success of its broader category, “professional, scientific, and technical services”.

Sector-specific wage increases are broken down, dissecting granular job wage growth, in the corresponding service- and goods-producing sector chapters below. 

Since 2015, all the nine sectors whose relative salary growth exceeded the economy’s average salary growth since 2015 were service-producing sectors. This reflects clear shifts in Canada’s economic priorities during that period.

“The service sector has been growing more than the goods-producing sector, and we have indications that that’s a very long-term trend in the economy over the past several decades,” said Gaudreault.

As a result of recent US tariffs designed to reshore manufacturing jobs to that country, Canadian businesses may reshore many goods-producing jobs, boosting Canadian goods-production above historic averages. However, historical economic and political trends suggest that Canada’s service-producing jobs will continue to see faster wage growth, as professional and technological industries continue to evolve.

Proven simply, between 2015 and 2024, all Canadian service-producing jobs’ average wages rose 34 percent from $46,364 in 2015 to $62,740 in 2024. That of goods-producing jobs rose 24 percent from 63,507 in 2015 to $78,754 in 2024.  

Services’ greater relative wage increases correlate, naturally, to the increased value of their work. It stands to reason that perceptions of labour shortages, particularly in goods-producing sectors, demonstrates a loss of value rather than a loss of human capital.

“If there’s a shortage of something, it means we need to increase the supply and reduce the demand,” said Skuterud. “The only way you can do that is by increasing the price. In most industries, there’s no shortage. It’s just the wages are too low.”

On the other hand, there are risks in raising pay bands too quickly, as can be the case in service-producing sectors where wages have recently risen, or in goods-producing sectors with historically high wages.

“Something we’re seeing now, those who are ... relatively young, have moved up in their career relatively quickly on this wave of acceleration, and are paid extremely well especially for how far they are in their careers... If they end up being terminated, the companies can be on the hook for a lot more money, because it may be quite difficult for those employees to find comparable employment to mitigate their damages,” said Tiwari. “So, there is an increased [litigation] risk there.”

Overall, the past decade shows a remarkable divergence in Canada’s economy between service- and goods-sector wage growth. Service sectors have consistently outpaced those of goods in wage growth speed, buoyed by professionalization, digitalization, and consumer demand. Goods-producing sectors, despite their traditionally higher pay, have delivered slower gains amid structural and trade pressures. To understand where opportunities and risks lie for employers, the following sections examine service- and goods-producing sectors in detail.

Service-producing sectors: digital, finance, personal services lead services salary surge

Between 2015 and 2025, annual wage increases for service-producing sectors averaged 3.3 percent with a spike of 7.9 percent in 2020.

As outlined above, information and culture industries; other services; and finance and insurance industries experienced the greatest relative wage increases. Each experienced average wage growth between 39 percent and 48 percent.

Jobs in the information and culture industries have enjoyed the greatest relative increase across all sectors in the Canadian economy. Broadcasting and content providers experienced an average increase of 65 percent from $52,398 in 2015 to $86,634. Next, publishers rose 58 percent from $72,272 to $114,404, and computing/data/web infrastructure providers rose 57 percent from $81,671 to $128,976.

Exceptionally, these jobs are also among the top four relative increases across all Canadian jobs (goods-producing jobs included), and boasted the greatest numerical wage differences of the decade (growth of $34,236, $42,132, and $47,305, respectively).  

The dominance of the information and cultural industries in wage growth is due to the sector’s digital shift, which requires higher specializations in data processing, software, and telecommunications, according to a Job Bank Canada Ontario labour market assessment. The rapid expansion of data services, digital content platforms, and broadband infrastructure has more than offset the industry’s recent declines in advertising and print revenues, according to the public assessment.

Other services saw the next greatest relative rise in wages, 40 percent, which propelled remarkable growth in Canada’s service sectors over the past decade. These other services include the single category of “religious, grant-making, civic, and professional and similar organizations,” and personal services, which include laundry, hair treatment, message, pet care, lifestyle counselling services, and the like.

Religious, grant-making, civic, and professional and similar organizations experienced a 47 percent salary increase from $42,942 in 2015 to $63,381 in 2024. Personal service salaries rose 42 percent from $27,278 to $38,920.

This job-specific growth is an indication of the post-pandemic inflation and salary increase trend outlined above. Much of this growth can be traced to the broader inflationary environment, particularly Canada’s housing-driven cost pressures, which have raised operating expenses for employers and increased wage demands from workers facing higher shelter costs, according to BMO Economics. At the same time, affluent Canadian households have sustained demand for many of these discretionary services. This dynamic has created a two-tier market where rising costs are more easily absorbed by wealthier Canadians, reinforcing personal services’ exclusivity and higher wages.

In the finance and insurance sector, which experienced 39 percent wage increase, one job sticks above the rest as driving wage growth. Credit intermediators, who lend money and help people or companies get credit through banks and credit unions, mortgage and loan brokers and check-cashing services, saw their salaries increase 47 percent from $55,079 in 2015 to $80,998 in 2024. (The remaining two finance sector categories – financial advisors and insurance carriers – posted salary growth of 36 percent and 31 percent, respectively.)

Demand for credit intermediators has risen despite general banking layoffs resulting from automation and digitization. Households and businesses navigating elevated borrowing costs, lending requirements and consumer reliance on debt have buoyed credit intermediator roles, according to Job Banks Canada’s Ontario report. Across the country, credit union revenues and employees have increased by 2.1 percent and 1.1 percent since 2020 and are expected to continue marginal growth to 2030, according to IBIS World, while the number of operating credit unions declined by 2.4 percent to just 446.

Rental and leasing represent the singular sector to have begun the previous decade with below-average salaries and emerged from it with above-average salaries. In this sector, lessors of non-financial intangible assets led relative salary growth. These include brand-name owners, franchise sellers, and intellectual property holders. Salaries from these occupations rose 44 percent from $59,189 in 2016 (2015 data unavailable) to $85,497 in 2024.

According to a Statistics Canada study on Data, Intangible Capital and Economic Growth in Canada from 2000 to 2019, investment in intangible assets grew faster than in physical capital (2.58 percent versus 2.02 percent annually), accounting for about one-fifth of Canada’s annual labour productivity growth, with the largest contributions coming from the aforementioned services information, cultural industries, and professional services.

Within the same sector, those employed in the leasing of tangible goods – including vehicles, computers, consumer goods and industrial equipment – saw the next greatest relative increase. Their salaries rose 41 percent from $48,953 in 2015 to $69,379 in 2024.

Workers in the industrial equipment rental sector today are expected to have a strong grasp of technologically advanced equipment like robotics, automation, and data-driven machinery, according to IBIS World. Additionally, businesses across sectors like construction, manufacturing, healthcare, agriculture, and entertainment are increasingly opting to rent equipment to avoid high upfront purchasing costs and access the latest technology. Both contribute to greater demand for leasing professionals.

Finally, looking across all service-producing jobs regardless of encompassing sector, three jobs stand out for relative salary growth in the past decade: general merchandise retail trade, which rose 66 percent to $36,772; advertising and public relations, which rose 53 percent to $85,238; and indigenous public administration, which rose 48 percent to $55,769.

Across the service-producing sectors, the recent embrace of remote work may have increased Canadians’ labour mobility and resulted in higher wages across the board.

“[Remote work] may allow these individuals to go after the best job offers and then command higher wages. That’s one hypothesis” for the strong relative increase of service sector salaries, said Gaudreault.

Goods-producing sectors: resources and utilities keep goods jobs high-paying, slower to grow

Between 2015 and 2024, annual wage increases for goods-producing sectors averaged 2.2 percent, with a spike of 5 percent in 2022.

Canada’s goods-producing sectors are divided into five: mining, utilities, construction, forestry, and manufacturing, which is also the ranking of goods-producing sectors’ absolute wage increases from 2015 to 2024. Considering the goods-producing sectors historically high salaries and less impressive relative growth compared to service wages, we find that providing an analysis of these sectors’ absolute wage changes, rather than relative wage changes, is more instructive.

Mining jobs have historically paid the most of goods-producing sectors on average and have also increased the most in average pay over the decade, increasing by $21,775 to $125,011 in 2024. Support activities for mining, and oil and gas extraction, experienced the most absolute growth in the mining sector, increasing by $26,169 to $117,955, followed by mining and quarrying’s increase of $24,089 to $112,493. Oil and gas extraction jobs, which has the mining sector’s highest paying average of $154,109, increased by $19,674 since 2015.

The utilities and construction sectors follow mining’s position, being ranked second and third in both historical salaries and for absolute salary increase over the past decade, respectively. Utilities average salaries increased by $18,783 to $111,874 in 2024, and construction by $15,691 to $78,785.

Water and sewage jobs lead utilities to absolute wage growth, increasing by $21,950 to $90,479. This job also led utility’s relative wage growth with the increase of 32 percent, goods-producing jobs five greatest relative growth behind others in manufacturing (see below). Water and sewage jobs are now somewhat closer to the average salaries of the other two components of utilities job, natural gas and electric power distribution, both of which rose by about $18,000 to pay on average $109,456 and $114,606, respectively.

In the construction sector, wage growth led in heavy and civil engineering construction, with an increase of $18,937 to $98,215.  

Forestry had the second lowest growth among goods-producing sectors’ absolute average wages, increasing by $15,247 to $78,754. This sector includes two jobs, forestry and logging, and support activities for forestry.

All manufacturing jobs experienced the least growth among goods-producing sectors’ absolute average wages, increasing by $13,664 to $69,716. However, in 2024, the 21 unique manufacturing jobs ranged from $47,447 (leather product manufacturing) to six-digit annual salaries. In 2024, the highest paying manufacturing jobs were petroleum and coal product manufacturing ($109,498), primary metal manufacturing ($90,548), paper manufacturing ($85,521), and chemical manufacturing ($81,390). Among 2024’s five highest paying manufacturing jobs, additional wages over 2015 ranged from petroleum and coal jobs’ additional $6,025, to paper manufacturing jobs’ additional $17,062. Non-metallic mineral product manufacturing jobs earned just $72,591 in 2024, but experienced the greatest absolute increase in manufacturing wages over 2015; those jobs earned an additional $19,635.

In Q2 2025, Canadian manufacturing jobs accounted for a remarkable 10 percent of all vacant private sector jobs, “which is quite high considering the size of this sector,” said Gaudreault.  Despite the jobs’ comparatively high pay, manufacturing jobs have struggled to fill available positions.

Recent year’s high immigration to Canada worked to improve the supply of workers for manufacturing. However, Parliament Hill has entered a new phase of immigration policy.

“[Canada’s federal government] wants to cut the number of temporary residents in Canada. That impacts not just the immigration streams, but also the temporary foreign worker program,” said Gaudreault. This is creating “headaches” for Canadian manufacturing firms, he said.

“They rely on this program to keep their doors open to a certain extent, because for manufacturing firms, sometimes it’s a volume equation: Are you going to be able to meet those clients’ requests and keep your production at a certain volume?”

Relying entirely on local employment may require Canadian manufactures to reduce production by as much as 30 percent, and with it, profits and competitive positioning.

Add to this Canadian manufacturer costs in dealing with the US, with tariffs and the legal or consulting costs of navigating more scrutinized North American trade, and “it’s a very complicated situation for our goods-producing industry” and their wages, said Gaudreault.

Salary growth across industries: closing remarks

Over the past decade, service sectors have outpaced goods sectors in wage growth, although goods sectors continue to offer higher overall pay but have seen slower increases. Profit margins among businesses within a given sector – particularly in the service sector – can vary widely, making it difficult to generalize about salary increases.

“You may have service industries that are employing relatively low-wage employees who support the daily operations, and at the same time, will coexist with the businesses that have higher margins, and employ people with advanced degrees or consultants, for example,” said Gaudreault. “These businesses will have very different horizons and outlooks in terms of how much they can increase sales, what profit they can generate, and hence, how much they can increase their compensation.”

Additionally, across sectors, there are considerable compositional factors to wage growth. For instance, industries with less turnover, where people work until older age or retirement, tend to see higher wages because of their tenured personnel. In turn, as a large generation of workers retires and leaves the workforce, these same industries replaced with earlier-career and lower-paid professionals may experience a decline in average salaries, said Skuterud.

This generational divide between employees and salary also presents the challenge of wage compression, where salaries are increasing fast to attract the best talent, and decades-old employees earning the same as fresh hires creates tension.

“How can firms avoid that? The way to deal with that is, as much as possible, try to get wages tied to productivity,” said Skuterud.

“The best way to do that, is to ensure that you’re responding to [labour] markets... If workers really feel that they’re underpaid in the workplace, what they should do is quit. Because if they’re underpaid, they should be able to earn something more somewhere else. If you cut a worker’s salary by 20 percent and they don’t quit, that could tell you something.”

Beyond decisions made in the HR office, decisions streaming from the highest offices in Canada and around the world may soon impact wage realities dramatically, as they had as workers emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. “We’re in a [global] situation with tremendous uncertainty,” said Skuterud, referring to new international trade precedents set during US President Donald Trump’s second term and ongoing international conflicts. HR professionals may again be limited in flexibility when adjusting wages to inflation and consumer impacts.

As workforces consequently adapt, and in some instances consolidate roles, Tiwari highlighted risk in industries with poor financial outlooks or disappearing specializations. Where long-tenured, highly skilled employees suddenly find their expertise obsolete, making it far harder to secure comparable work, they thereby increase potential notice awards in litigation.

Salary growth across provinces

Salary growth across Canada is anything but uniform. While some provinces have seen pay scales surge in line with booming service economies, others remain anchored to resource-driven goods sectors, from Atlantic Canada’s steady service-led ascent to Alberta’s still-dominant oil patch and British Columbia’s digital and creative boom.

For several provinces and territories, sector-level wage data were suppressed to comply with the confidentiality requirements of the Statistics Act or were unavailable due to insufficient sampling. This is seen in Manitoba (forestry, mining, utilities), Saskatchewan (forestry, utilities), Newfoundland and Labrador (forestry, utilities, management), Prince Edward Island (forestry, mining, utilities, management), Nova Scotia (forestry, mining, utilities), and New Brunswick (mining, utilities, management). The territories faced the most extensive exclusions: Yukon (forestry, mining, manufacturing, utilities, information and cultural, real estate, management, education); Northwest Territories (forestry, utilities, manufacturing, information and cultural, finance, real estate, management, arts); and Nunavut, with the broadest suppression, excluding most private-sector industries outside public administration.

Where sectoral data contained gaps of up to four years, missing values were estimated using linear interpolation to preserve series continuity.

Atlantic Canada (NL, NS, NB, PEI): services set the pace across the east, with oil and gas still a pay anchor

Atlantic pay has risen steadily. On the east coast, services generally outpaced goods, with Prince Edward Island as an exception. In Newfoundland and Labrador, goods rose 22 percent (to $89,366) and services 24 percent (to $59,886). Oil and gas remain the pay anchor: mining, quarrying and oil and gas climbed 27 percent to $137,763, while in services, professional, scientific and technical services sit highest at $91,854, with real estate and rental the fastest riser (41 percent). For HR, oil and gas recovery keeps salary expectations elevated, but professional services are increasingly competitive for mid-career hires.

Nova Scotia shows broad-based momentum: goods by 32 percent (to $68,623) and services by 35 percent (to $56,499). Service-side finance has surged (48 percent to $80,440), as well as information and cultural (44 percent to $84,843), and goods leadership rests with construction (38 percent to $68,499). HR teams should anticipate wage pressure in finance, tech-adjacent, and creative roles, with construction continuing to drive up pay bands for frontline positions.

New Brunswick has a similar profile: goods increased 28 percent (to $66,548) versus services, 36 percent (to $58,061). Forestry, logging, and support has experienced the standout increase (40 percent to $65,894) in goods, while information and cultural led services (38 percent to $86,039). Salary compression risks in admin and back-office functions can be expected as knowledge roles pull ahead.

The exception is Prince Edward Island, where goods outpaced services by 36 percent (to $63,271) versus 33 percent (to $54,426). Yet, beneath that average, finance and insurance in services is a remarkable outlier (63 percent to $79,555), and construction in goods rose 43 percent to $64,048. For recruiters, that mix means tight ranges for skilled trades alongside rapidly rising benchmarks for licensed financial roles.

Quebec: services outpace goods as bilingual tech and media roles lift salaries

Quebec closely followed national trends. Services grew faster than goods, 41 percent (to $60,117) versus 34 percent (to $74,535). The information and cultural complex led services (46 percent to $87,009), while on the goods side, forestry, logging and support advanced 41 percent (to $67,837). Management-track pay in services is elevated (management companies near $88,746), but goods retain a sizeable pay premium overall. HR implications: competition for bilingual tech, media, and finance talent will keep salary bands buoyant, even as manufacturing and forestry tighten recruitment in the regions.

Ontario: tech and creative wages climb fastest while trades retain a lasting premium

Ontario mirrors the national tilt toward services: 37 percent (to $65,372) versus goods 25 percent (to $76,540). Information and cultural is the clear services engine (55 percent to $98,754), with PSTS and finance and insurance close behind. On the goods side, construction has been the main driver (29 percent to $78,060). For HR leaders, two tensions dominate: (1) pressure to match tech/creative pay scales, especially in remote roles, and (2) sustained premiums for skilled trades and utilities, which continue to outpay most service occupations despite slower growth.

Manitoba and Saskatchewan (The Prairies): services advance steadily while resources and manufacturing sustain pay gaps

Both provinces show services outpacing goods, but with distinct sector textures.

Manitoba: Goods rose 25 percent (to $70,496) and services 31 percent (to $57,242). The fastest-rising service niche is management of companies and enterprises (61 percent to $78,884), signaling deeper corporate capability and HQ-style roles; accommodation and food services also lifted quickly (45 percent), albeit from low levels. Goods growth was anchored by construction (26 percent to $71,081) and manufacturing (24 percent to $64,981). HR takeaway: mid-management and specialised back-office roles are pricier than a decade ago; manufacturing remains competitive but must budget for steady annual increments.

Saskatchewan: Goods increased 20 percent (to $87,021) and services 26 percent (to $58,585), finance and insurance-led services (42 percent to $80,861), with information and cultural also strong (37 percent to $76,667). On the goods side, manufacturing posted 23 percent growth (to $71,406), while mining and oil and gas advanced 20 percent to a commanding $120,001. For HR, abundant resource salaries keep a wide cross-sector premium in place; service employers need crisp value propositions – career ladders, training, flexible rosters – to win candidates who can command higher pay in goods.

Alberta: Energy keeps wages high as services slowly close the gap

Alberta remains the archetypal two-speed province. Goods rose 13 percent (to $94,870), while services gained 20 percent (to $62,243). That’s a narrower gap than a decade ago, but the goods pay premium is still pronounced (≈$32,627 in 2024). Within goods, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas strengthened again (20 percent to $135,225). Among services, information and cultural rose 32 percent (to $82,254), and management of companies and enterprises remains a high-pay pocket ($112,882).

HR guidance: Resource cycles continue to shape pay expectations for allied trades and engineering; and service employers can compete by emphasizing stability and progression alongside market-median salary targets.

British Columbia: Digital and film industries fuel service growth while utilities anchor goods

British Columbia shows one of the sharpest service-led expansions: services, 42 percent (to $64,032) versus goods, 30 percent (to $77,814). Information and cultural jumped 51 percent to $97,970, reflecting the province’s strong digital, film, and content ecosystem. Other services also rose briskly. Among goods, utilities climbed 40 percent to $119,601, a reminder that regulated infrastructure roles remain high-pay anchors. HR implication: expect ongoing wage drift in tech-adjacent roles and creative industries; skilled-trade recruitment will remain tight, with utilities and construction setting the upper bounds.

The Territories (Yukon, NWT, Nunavut): Resource and construction roles secure Canada’s highest absolute pay levels

The North remains distinct: goods outpaced services across the board, and absolute pay levels are among the highest in Canada. Yukon: goods rose 46 percent (to $93,124) versus services by 35 percent (to $72,703); construction leads Goods in level ($84,634), while public administration sets the services ceiling ($90,773). Northwest Territories: goods increased 29 percent (to $1125,117) versus services by 20 percent (to $81,773); construction is the top goods subsector by level ($94,713), with public administration leading services ($101,618). Nunavut: goods rose 37 percent (to $112,168) versus services 27 percent (to $81,154); construction tops goods ($91,867); and public administration heads services ($95,833). For HR, relocation premiums, housing, and rotation policies remain decisive even with strong service growth (e.g., education and health in Nunavut), and goods retain a commanding pay premium.

Salary growth across provinces: closing remarks

Across provinces and territories, wage growth has followed distinct paths shaped by resource cycles, sectoral specialization and regional policy, leaving Canada with a patchwork of benchmark salaries. Challenge lies not only in tracking these differences, but also in navigating the regulatory and mobility barriers that determine how easily workers and employers can respond.

To see the same jobs wages improve equally across provinces, Gaudreault emphasized that stronger labour mobility is essential, benefiting both employers and workers by expanding options and improving outcomes.

“One of the aspects of labour mobility in Canada that we’ve highlighted is the entire question of having free trade within Canada. Free trade means not just the goods aspect... It’s also true for workers,” he said. For example, the ability to contract workers of a provincially regulated industry to another region where there may be greater demand for labour is a missed opportunity for workers, employers, and the Canadian economy. Skills recognition across provincial jurisdictions is “one of the things that we’ll need to really fix in the very short term,” forewarned Gaudreault.

In the interim, Tiwari said it’s imperative for firms engaged across Canada to know the provincial regulations associated with their work and general labour laws. Rules governing vacation pay on commissions, for example, differ widely. In British Columbia, all employees receive it; in Alberta, some do and some do not; and in Ontario, the answer depends on role definitions and court interpretations. For national employers, this creates a patchwork of obligations and raises questions of whether to follow each province’s minimum standards or set a unified baseline reflecting the most generous rule. For HR leaders, understanding these differences, as well as the exceptions, is critical to compliance and litigation risk management.

Conclusion

Canada’s wage story over the past decade is one of uneven growth. Service sectors, particularly in the digital and financial fields, have pulled ahead while goods sectors remain high paying but slower to rise. Regional differences and regulatory barriers add further complexity, creating a patchwork of wage realities across the country.

For HR leaders, the challenge is balancing competitive pay with compliance and workforce planning in an environment shaped by inflation, demographic turnover and global uncertainty. The next phase will test how resilient Canada’s labour market can be when faced with both external shocks and internal structural pressures.

“What’s helpful for the HR community in Canada is to recognize how markets work,” said Skuterud. “All empirical evidence [clearly shows] that labour supply is increasing in compensation. If you want higher quality [and] higher productivity applicants, the way to do that is to offer better pay” broadly speaking, he said. “Better pay isn’t just the nominal wage rate: It’s working conditions, it’s the environment, the attractiveness of a job, the whole package. There are other margins on which you can attract [talent], but just provide a better job... Pay goes up, demand goes down.”