Wages and salaries

Alberta Employment and Immigration commissions a detailed wage and salary survey every two years.  The survey provides information on wages and salaries for full-time and part-time employees in Alberta by occupation, geographic area and industry1.  The latest survey was conducted in 2009 and for the first time wage and salary estimates have been prepared for Alberta’s 14 economic regions. 

In 2009, the average hourly wage was $21.87 in the Central region2, 10.1% less than the Alberta average of $24.34 per hour. 

The industries in the region with the largest number of reported employees were healthcare and social services, public administration (federal, provincial and municipal government), manufacturing and retail trade.  The industry with the highest average wage was the oil and gas industry at $33.02 per hour, followed by public administration at $30.16.  The accommodation and food services industry had the lowest average wage at $11.23 per hour.

The average number of hours worked per week was 37.0 for the region and 37.3 for all of Alberta.  The industry with the most average hours per employee was the construction sector at 45.6 hours, followed by oil and gas at 43.5 hours.    

As the below table indicates, the Central region’s labour shortage problems were similar to those encountered in Alberta’s urban core.  The region had a 3.8% vacancy rate3 in 2009, compared with Alberta’s 3.0%, and reported a similar rate of hiring difficulties4 as Alberta (42% versus 41%). 

1 http://alis.alberta.ca/wageinfo 
2 The number of survey respondents for small regions may be too small to provide accurate overall wage estimates
3 The percentage of total positions in this industry reported as unfilled for over four months
4 Percent of employers with hiring difficulties
5 Only industries with more than 200 reported employees were included in the table

Date Updated:
RDP-2405