Canadian average weekly earnings, including overtime, of payroll employees was $820.95 in February 2009, up 1.8% from February 2008.

In the largest industrial sectors, from February 2008 to February 2009, average weekly earnings were up by 5.6% in retail trade, 2.0% in health care and social assistance, 1.5% in accommodation and food services, 0.7% in educational services and 0.6% in public administration.

During the same period, earnings declined by 4.3% for employees in manufacturing as a whole.

Earnings declined for employees in most of the biggest manufacturing industries, that is, food; transportation equipment; fabricated metal products; machinery; and wood products.

Provincially, the strongest year-over-year earnings growth among the provinces occurred in Alberta (+5.4%), Newfoundland and Labrador (+4.5%) and Saskatchewan (+3.5%).

Canadian Average Weekly Earnings By Province
February 2009

Canadian Average Weekly Earnings By Industry
February 2009

Data from Statistics Canada

1 Jun 2009