Salaries to ‘thaw’ in 2010: Mercer; Change association goes virtual; N.B. gender wage gap increases in 2008
Salaries to ‘thaw’ in 2010: Mercer
Toronto — Canadian employers plan to award average base pay increases of 2.7 per cent in 2010, a rebound from the actual increases of two per cent in 2009, according to the 2010 Canadian Compensation Planning Survey from Mercer. This increase is mostly due to a “salary thaw,” as only eight per cent of 500 companies surveyed plan to freeze salaries in 2010, compared to nearly one-third of employers in 2009. The all-employee average for employers that plan to award increases is three per cent, but 30 per cent of employers are still undecided on next year’s salary budgets.
Change association goes virtual
Toronto — The Association for Creative Change in Organization Renewal and Development (ACCORD) is moving towards a virtual delivery model. The association of change practitioners, established in 1995, cited falling membership numbers, declining interest in programming and emerging technologies as reasons for the move. While ACCORD’s website will close down, the association plans to develop the community using Yahoo and Facebook groups. ACCORD will continue to operate as a corporation under Ontario law, with four directors.
N.B. gender wage gap increases in 2008
Fredericton — New Brunswick’s gender wage gap increased to 14.1 per cent in 2008 from 12.6 per cent in 2007, according to the third annual progress report on the government’s five-year wage gap action plan. While women’s wages continued to rise in 2008, men’s wages rose by a greater percentage, mostly due to wage increases in construction and skilled trades. This year, the government introduced the Pay Equity Act, which applies to all parts of the public sector, and two municipalities (Quispamsis and Memramcook) achieved pay equity for their municipal employees. The government is also working with the private sector to conduct job evaluations to determine pay equity adjustments for child-care workers, home support workers, nursing home workers, transition home workers and human service workers in community residences.
