Paradise Lost for Alberta Workers

“Think I'll go out to Alberta, weather's good there in the fall, I got some friends that I can go to workin' for...”

That’s not just a famous lyric by Ian Tyson. For years it’s been a siren song luring workers from other parts of Canada in search of a better life. From B.C. to Cape Breton, thousands of workers would migrate to Alberta each year in search of better jobs and higher wages.

In recent years, however, Alberta’s reputation as a promised land for workers has taken a battering, as documented in my report “The Alberta Wage Disadvantage: Evidence on Alberta’s Continuing Suppression of Wages and Salaries,” published this week in collaboration with the Alberta Federation of Labour.

For a decade, wages have grown more slowly in Alberta than in any other province. And workers’ real pay (adjusted for inflation) has been going backward — fast.

The latest statistics confirm that painful trend continued in 2024. Average hourly wages (for workers paid by the hour) grew 2.2 per cent last year — third worst of any province. (Most recent available wage data covers the first 10 months of 2024.) Across Canada as a whole, hourly wages grew 3.8 per cent.

But sluggish wages didn’t protect Albertans from inflation. To the contrary, Alberta recorded the fastest inflation of any province, with annual average consumer prices rising 2.9 per cent in 2024. Slow wage growth plus faster inflation means bad news for workers. The real value of the hourly wage (adjusted for inflation) declined 0.8 per cent in 2024. That marks the fourth year in a row, and the ninth year in the last 11, that real hourly wages in Alberta went backward. In contrast, real wages in other provinces have been rebounding briskly. On average across Canada, hourly wages (adjusted for inflation) grew 1.3 per cent in 2024.

For many years, Alberta boasted the highest wages and the strongest labour market in Canada. This was a key component of what was once called the “Alberta Advantage.”

Unfortunately, the tides have turned dramatically. Unemployment in Alberta has exceeded the national average since 2016. Hourly wage growth has been slower than in any other province, averaging just 1.5 per cent per year in nominal terms since 2013 — barely half the national average (2.8 per cent).

Alberta no longer holds the crown for highest-wage province. B.C. passed Alberta in 2023, and then Quebec jumped past in 2024. In 2013, average wages in Alberta were 17 per cent higher than the national average. By last year, that gap shrank to less than two per cent. Within another year or two, at this pace, Alberta’s wages will fall below the national average.

Despite sluggish wages, Alberta’s cost of living is among the highest in Canada. According to Statistics Canada’s “market basket measure,” Calgary is the second most expensive city in Canada (just behind Vancouver), while Edmonton ranks fourth (just behind Toronto). Again, weak wages plus high prices equals falling living standards.

Indeed, Alberta is the only province where average real weekly earnings (for both hourly and salaried staff) were lower in 2024 than in 2019 (when Alberta’s current United Conservative Party government came to power). This highlights that deliberate policy choices by governments, not natural “market forces,” are to blame. Falling real wages are the intended outcome of a proactive plan to shift income from workers to corporations.

No single policy reveals this anti-wage bias more than Alberta’s shameful minimum wage freeze: now tied (with Saskatchewan) for lowest in Canada, with no increase since October 2018. After six years of rapid inflation, its real value has fallen 17 per cent — producing a catastrophic decline in real earnings for the lowest-paid workers.

Other wage suppression measures further undermine pay. Rules on trade union formation and strike activity are the most restrictive of any province — making it harder to form a union, bargain effectively and strike if necessary. Union coverage is the lowest in Canada: just 23 per cent of workers have union protection, well below the Canadian average (30 per cent), and far behind union-friendly Quebec or Newfoundland (both 39 per cent).

During the pandemic, the provincial government engineered uniquely austere wage settlements across the broader public sector (including schools, hospitals and provincial administration). Most received just 3.75 per cent over four years (even as consumer prices soared 18 per cent). That further suppressed provincial wage performance.

Tens of thousands of workers in Alberta are now trying to make up lost ground in wage negotiations — including across the broader provincial public sector, and in many private workplaces. The government is up to its old tricks, however: using delaying tactics (like special dispute boards to defer strikes) and secret bargaining mandates to forcibly cap wage gains.

As a result of these deliberate policies, workers now face an “Alberta Disadvantage.” Real wages continue to go backward, and living standards are in crisis. So it’s little wonder workers are angry. Nurses rejected a mediator’s proposed settlement that would have left real wages still well below 2020 levels. Despite roadblocks thrown in their path by provincial strictures, thousands of support workers are now on strike at several school boards. Those actions could spread across other major public services in the weeks to come.

Measured by GDP per capita and productivity, Alberta is still Canada’s richest province. The province’s business sector (especially petroleum) has earned record profits since 2022 — in large part because of the same inflation that eroded the value of workers’ paycheques. Gross corporate profits ($184 billion in 2023, most recent data) are up 115 per cent since 2016 and now almost match the total value of all wages, salaries, pensions and employee benefits paid in the entire province ($191 billion, up just 25 per cent since 2016).

But that corporate wealth is not trickling down, thanks to the aggressively pro-business nature of the province’s policies and institutions. Perhaps this year’s labour militance in Alberta will spark a change in direction.