B.C.'s minimum wage, the highest of all Canadian provinces, is going up again
The province's lowest-paid workers will soon be seeing more money on their paycheques as British Columbia's minimum wage increases again.
The minimum wage changes Wednesday in a scheduled and previously announced increase to $15.65 an hour.
Workers previously made $15.20.
This is the highest minimum wage of any Canadian province, the NDP government said in a news release reminding workers of the increase.
And it's part of a five-year plan that began in 2018 to increase the wage up to, and then beyond, $15.
The increase is tied to B.C.'s annual inflation rate, which was 2.8 per cent last year, the Labour Ministry said Tuesday.
A 2.8 per cent increase will also apply to live-in workers such as camp counsellors and home-support workers that earn minimum daily or monthly wages.
According to provincial data, approximately six per cent of B.C.'s workforce earned minimum wage or less last year. That represents about 136,300 people.
And of those, about half were over the age of 25, and nearly 60 per cent were women.
While B.C.'s minimum wage is the highest of all provinces, it is not the highest in the country.
Minimum wage workers in Yukon make $15.70 an hour, and in Nunavut, they earn an hourly rate of $16.
Correction
An earlier version of this article said about half of employees making minimum wage or less were over the age of 15, when it should have said they were over the age of 25.
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