Government workers across Canada receive 9.4% higher wages, on average, than comparable private-sector workers

VANCOUVER—The wage premium and more generous benefits that government workers in Canada enjoy over their private-sector counterparts is one area governments could look to reduce costs following the recession, finds a new study by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. “At a time when governments across Canada are facing serious fiscal pressures as a result of the recession, bringing government sector compensation in line with the private sector would help reduce costs without necessarily affecting services,” said Ben Eisen, a senior fellow with the Fraser Institute. The study, Comparing Government and Private Sector Compensation in Canada, finds that government employees across Canada—including federal, provincial and municipal workers—were paid 33.5 per cent higher wages, on average, than workers in the private sector in 2018, the most recent year of available comparable data from Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey.

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