Saskatchewan’s minimum wage is going up $1 an hour from the $13 an hour it currently sits at on Sunday and Global News got some perspective on how this will affect local business.
Keith Moen, the executive director for the North Saskatoon Business Association (NSBA), said the minimum wage increase will mostly affect small and medium-sized businesses.
“They’re the ones that are mostly involved in that space in terms of employing people at the minimum wage level,” Moen said.
He added that very few employers are paying minimum-wage salaries right now.
“You can’t find people at the best of times, and of course people will go to a higher-paying job if they’re able to.”
He said small businesses are still feeling the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as inflationary pressures.
Moen said it was beneficial to have more employees making more money, pointing to the circular effect within the economy where employees put that money back into the community.
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He said minimum-wage jobs aren’t intended to be career jobs and that they are intended for those who are younger or inexperienced in the workforce, adding that those jobs give them an opportunity to build their skill set.
“It’s also an opportunity for them to realize that perhaps there’s an educational requirement that they want to pursue that would enable them to get a higher-paying job down the road.”
He said this minimum wage increase will create more inflationary pressures, noting it could affect a business’s hours of operation or employee roster.
The wage increase is part of a larger provincial plan to have the minimum wage set to $15 an hour by 2024.
Labour Relations and Workplace Safety Minister Don McMorris pointed to other supports for wage earners in the province on Tuesday, including the basic personal tax exemption, child tax credit and Saskatchewan Low-Income Tax Credit.
“Saskatchewan has a strong, growing economy and increasing the minimum wage is just one of many mechanisms used to take care of Saskatchewan workers and create more prosperity for everyone,” McMorris said.
The province said personal taxes were among the lowest in the country, claiming exemptions have resulted in over $760 million in savings for residents.
Other organizations were a little more critical of Saskatchewan’s minimum wage.
The Oct. 1 increase will bring the minimum wage rate up from the current $13 an hour, but won’t pull the province out of having the lowest minimum wage in Canada.
Peter Gilmer, an advocate with the Regina Anti-Poverty Ministry, said the living wage in Saskatchewan currently sits around the $18-$19 an hour range.
He was concerned about the province continuing to have the lowest minimum wage in the country, saying over the course of several years, Saskatchewan has had either the lowest minimum wage or the second lowest.
“We’re disappointed that’s the competition that we’ve been in,” Gilmer said.
The Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership (SPRP) put together a report card showing poverty levels and associated issues in Saskatoon, saying that about 16 per cent of people in Saskatoon live in poverty.
Across the province, 18.4 per cent of people live in poverty, with the national average sitting at 15.6 per cent.
That number jumps when looking at children in the province. About 19.5 per cent of children in Saskatoon face poverty, with that number sitting at 24.2 per cent provincially.
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