Canadian Employees in the Energy Industry Will Continue to Make More Money Than You

Canada’s rich energy sector is making its entire workforce a lot richer than other industries.

A new study by Mercer released Monday found that the nation’s energy industry is projected to continue increasing salaries in Alberta and across the country into 2015. Workers in the energy field will experience a higher base pay than the national average.

The survey suggested that the average raise in base pay is predicted to be three percent next year, which is the same as the increase this year. The province of Alberta, the prosperous oil area of the country, will witness a base pay raise of 3.2 percent in 2015, which is slightly lower than the 3.3 percent gain this year.

The energy sector, though, will garner a 3.9 percent pay increase in 2014 and another 3.7 percent next year, according to the group’s 2014/2015 Canada Compensation Planning Survey (CCPP), a survey that has been conducted for more than two decades.

Allison Griffiths, Mercer’s Canadian Workforce Rewards Practice Leader, said these income trends have been relatively stable for the past five years at the national level and in various industries because businesses are confident in their outlook of the overall economy.

“This year’s results are not surprising. Over the last five years we’ve observed a differential between the national projection and energy sector of approximately one per cent. When we remove the energy sector from the national sample, the average projected salary increase drops to 2.9 per cent,” said Griffiths in an interview with the Calgary Herald.

“The energy sector, oil and gas, has typically been around one per cent higher than the national average. It’s primarily driven because of those oil and gas numbers and the energy sector employers that typically have bigger budgets and whether that be because they’re trying to compete with each other for key talent or whether it’s the fact that the cost of living in Alberta may be creeping up. Or they’re trying to gather people in from other provinces.”

Of course, Alberta isn’t the only province undergoing an energy boost. Saskatchewan is also experiencing a booming energy industry that is amplifying wages around the province. In fact, Saskatchewan will be a close second to Alberta next year in regards to pay increases.

The Edmonton Journal’s Gary Lamphier notes that commuting oilsand workers who are taking WestJet flights from cities like Hamilton, Halifax or Kelowna wouldn’t necessarily be surprised by the results of the survey. These individuals are earning lucrative salaries working in the oilpatches and bringing back that money to their families and communities.

“I’ve had several inflight chats with these workers, who almost invariably boast of earning six-figure annual incomes here that far outstrip what they could earn elsewhere,” wrote Lamphier. “One planned to pay off his mortgage and finance a new restaurant business in Sydney, N.S., while another was paying down the cost of a farm near Wallaceburg, Ont.”

Despite the migration to Alberta, it’s still suffering from a labor shortage, which means companies are competing with each other for the best talent available and offering competitive compensation packages, notes the Globe and Mail.

This is bad news for the province of Quebec and Atlantic Canada. These are two regions that will post the lowest pay gains with just 2.8 percent.