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. 

According to this survey, the average hourly wage was $26.02 in the Mackenzie region in 2009, 6.9% more than the Alberta average of $24.34 per hour.  However, this higher average wage level is neither supported by Census 2006 estimates nor by taxfiler data for 2007, both of which suggest a substantially higher Alberta average.  (The wage and salary survey’s number of respondents for this region is likely much too small to provide accurate overall wage estimates.)

The average number of hours worked was 40.4 per week for the region and 37.3 for all of Alberta. 

As the below table clearly indicates, labour shortage issues are not confined to Alberta’s urban core.  The Mackenzie region had a 4.9% vacancy rate2 in 2009, much higher than Alberta’s 3.0%.  Moreover, the region also reported more hiring difficulties3 than Alberta (54% versus 41%).

The industry in the region with the largest number of reported employees was healthcare and social services, followed by public administration and retail trade.  Most of the industries for this region have too few reported employees for the estimates to be reliable.  Only the three industries in the below table had more than 100 reported employees4: public administration (federal, provincial and municipal government) with an average wage at $33.90 per hour; retail trade ($28.37); and healthcare and social services ($26.58).  Although estimates for the oil and gas industry are not as reliable as for these three industries, wage and salary estimates suggest that it is the industry with the highest average wage.

1 http://alis.alberta.ca/wageinfo 
2 The percentage of total positions in this industry reported as unfilled for over four months
3 Percent of employers with hiring difficulties with Hiring Difficulties
4 Only industries or occupations with more than 100 reported employees were included in the analysis

Date Updated:
RDP-2406