As the Alberta NDP called for increases to the province’s minimum wage, an economist said the province has always had an interesting track record when it comes to establishing policy. Read More
’So now in 2025, Alberta’s $15 is definitely not an outlier,’ Joseph Marchand said. ‘It is the nominal lowest’
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‘So now in 2025, Alberta’s $15 is definitely not an outlier,’ Joseph Marchand said. ‘It is the nominal lowest’
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As the Alberta NDP called for increases to the province’s minimum wage, an economist said the province has always had an interesting track record when it comes to establishing policy.
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On Monday, Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi called on the UCP government to raise the province’s minimum wage and index it to inflation.
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Alberta’s current $15-an-hour rate was established in 2018 by former NDP leader Rachel Notley. On Oct. 1, it will become the lowest minimum wage in all of Canada.
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“Even the conservative government in Saskatchewan is increasing their minimum wage, something Premier Smith and her UCP government refuse to do,” said Nenshi. “That decision hasn’t created jobs and continues to keep too many people living on the edge.”
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In a statement, Minister of Jobs, Economy, Trade and Immigration Joseph Schow said the majority of wage earners are 24 years old or younger, meaning a majority of them are in their first job or just entering the workforce.
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“The fact is, Alberta remains one of the most affordable places to call home with lower cost of living, more affordable housing options, along with lower taxes that keep more money in the pockets of Albertans,” Schow said. “When it comes to minimum wage, we are balancing workforce needs while also ensuring businesses are not forced to raise costs or be unable to pay their employees, putting entry-level jobs at risk.”
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According to the 2024 Alberta Minimum Wage Profile, 5.2 per cent of employees in Alberta earn minimum wage, with a total of 56.6 per cent between 15 and 24 years old.
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Employment-wise, 64 per cent are part-time, with 36 per cent working full-time.
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The majority of minimum wage earners generally work in retail, trade and accommodation and food services industries.
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A wild ride for minimum wage in Alberta, says professor
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University of Alberta professor of economics and founding director of the Alberta Centre for Labour Market Research Joseph Marchand said the province’s track record with minimum wage has been a wild ride, due to Canada’s “first mover” and “follower” mentality amongst provinces and territories.
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Looking back a decade ago, Marchand said Alberta has a long history with minimum wage policy.
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“In 2015, the province had a minimum wage of $10.20, and it was a minimum wage policy that was tied to automatic increases with half being tied to prices, and half for earnings, so if prices were to go up by three per cent, earning would go up by four per cent, then the minimum wage would automatically annually go up by 3.5 per cent,” Marchand said. “In 2015 is where that got scrapped, and we got these four big nominal increases . . . to get us up to $15 in 2018, so it was a 47 per cent nominal increase.”
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The liquor server differential was also scrapped at that time, which would see liquor servers see a 63 per cent minimum wage increase through the removal of the differential and large nominal increase.
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“Prior to Alberta having that $10.20, there was a race to $10, and everyone got there, and when Alberta introduced the $15, it was a seven-year race for everybody to get to this new $15 mark,” Marchand said.
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In 2018, Marchand said Alberta was a significant outlier compared to the rest of Canada.
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“We were kind of the highest, for I think three or four years, amongst provinces and territories during the late (2010s), and then some other provinces started to join us, and territories started joining us at the $15 level,” he said. “This was happening in the U.S. too, mainly during the early 2020s.”
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A few years after the COVID-19 pandemic, high inflation increases played a significant role in minimum hourly wages across Canada.
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“So now in 2025, Alberta’s $15 is definitely not an outlier,” Marchand said. “It is the nominal lowest.”
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Indexing minimum wage might not ‘mean a lot for minimum wage workers’: Marchand
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Compared to the rest of Canada, Alberta will effectively be at the bottom of the list of minimum hourly wage rates on Oct. 1, after Saskatchewan raises its rate to $15.35 an hour.
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“The majority of provinces and territories are all kind of bunched up between $15 and $16, with a few outliers above that, and the highest at $19 and some change,” Marchand said.
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After helping chair the minimum wage expert panel in 2019 for the Minister of Labour and Immigration at the time, Marchand said their report recommended the possibility of returning to indexing minimum wage, following the same formula Alberta had in 2015.
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“If Alberta were to do that, that would not be a huge increase in minimum wage, because inflation is no longer a big deal at the moment, which is good,” he said. “We’re back to around two per cent inflation, but if the government were to reintroduce that going forward, then I don’t think it would mean a lot for minimum wage workers, other than to take the argument away that the Alberta minimum wage hasn’t increased since 2018, because now we have automatic increases going forward.”
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Marchand said Alberta still remains an outlier when it comes to youth unemployment in the province.
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“We have a 17 per cent unemployment rate among young individuals in the province,” he said. “That’s an outlier, and if we’re worried about that, an increase past inflation, if that were to be proposed, that could have disemployment effects for minimum wage workers. Lots of them are younger, and so that might help the unemployment situation among younger workers these days.”
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