Minimum wage jumped $1.30 per hour on Friday, up to $12.65 per hour, and that could mean fewer jobs being available for low income earners, according to the chamber of commerce.
It is an almost 12 per cent increase, and the hike is the first of four June 1 raises, with three more to come, eventually resulting in the province’s lowest-paid workers getting $15.20 per hour by 2021. That was an NDP promise in the last provincial election.
This is the largest minimum wage increase planned. On June 1, 2019 the rate will increase to $13.85 per hour, in 2020 to $14.60, and in 2021 to $15.20.
Ken Holland, president of the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows Chamber of Commerce, said the raise will impact businesses, even as workers rejoice.
“That will affect companies, obviously,” he said. “Now there might not be as many jobs, as it impacts on business costs.”
He noted the B.C. Chamber has taken a position that the minimum wage should be linked with the consumer price index, to bring stability and predictability to these increases, and protect business owners from sudden, unexpected hikes.
Ineke Boekhorst, of the Maple Ridge Downtown Business Improvement Association, said her members have not complained about the hike in a formal, or even complaining way.
“Nobody has even mentioned that at all,” she said, and noted that most downtown retailers pay their workers in the $13 to $15 range already as a starting wage.
That’s the case at the Europe Bakery and Deli on 224th Street, where about a quarter of the staff make minimum wage, according to the manager.
“I want to see my girls happy, too,” she said, adding that the new wage simply has to be paid.
In B.C., 5.9 per cent of the paid workforce earns the minimum wage, below the national average of 7.2 per cent.
Of those, 57 per cent are part-time workers, and more than half are youth living at home.
“Contrary to widely held misperceptions, the vast majority of minimum wage earners in B.C. aren’t poor, and they are rarely the primary or sole income earner in their household,” said Charles Lammam, director of fiscal studies at the Fraser Institute. “The majority are, in fact, teenagers and young adults living with their parents.”
Boekhorst expects the food industry to be hardest hit by the sudden increase.
“We’ve gone with dimes [increases] for a long time, so this is an enormous jump,” she said.
She noted the government increased the grant her organization gets to hire a summer student, to cover the rate increase.
The rate is not the highest in Canada. Ontario’s minimum wage is $14 an hour, and will rise to $15 on Jan. 1.
Alberta’s minimum wage is $13.60 per hour, but most of the other provinces are in the $11 range.
Liquor servers have their own minimum wage, which is set at $11.40 per hour, but it too will ultimately rise to $15.20 per hour.
And there are also new rates for live-in camp leaders and support workers, apartment building caretakers, and for hand-harvested crops from A to S – apricots to strawberries.