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 $28.10 in the Wood Buffalo region2, 15.4% higher than the Alberta average of $24.34 per hour.  However, the actual differential is likely to be even larger as no wage and salary information was available for the oil sands sector.

The industry in the region with the largest number of reported employees was construction, followed by wholesale trade.  Of the below listed industries, the highest average wage was registered for the scientific, technical and professional services sector (mostly engineering) at $35.32, followed by construction at $34.26.  However, other sources suggest that the region’s oil and gas extraction sector (mostly oil sands extraction) has even higher wages.  The accommodation and food services industry had the lowest average wage at $14.90 per hour.

The average number of hours worked per week was 37.1 for the region and 37.3 for all of Alberta.  The industry with the most average hours per employee was the transportation and warehousing sector at 42.8 hours.    

The Wood Buffalo region’s labour shortage problems were similar to those for all of Alberta.  The Wood Buffalo region had a 2.5% vacancy rate3 in 2009, compared with Alberta’s 3.0%, but reported more hiring difficulties4 than Alberta (45% versus 41%).  Labour shortages were the most acute in accommodation and food services.

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 with Hiring Difficulties
5 Only industries with more than 200 reported employees were included in the table

Date Updated:
RDP-2415