Ontario’s minimum wage will increase next month to become the second highest of all the Canadian provinces, the government says.
The minimum wage will boost to $17.20 an hour on Oct. 1, up 3.9 per cent from the current rate of $16.55 per hour, the province said. Under the Employment Standards Act, Ontario’s minimum wage increases annually based on provincial inflation levels.
Ontario Labour Minister David Piccini announced the hike in March to give businesses “certainty and predictability” by sharing news of the increase ahead of time.
The government said a worker making the general minimum wage and working 40 hours per week would see an annual pay increase of roughly $1,355. It added 935,600 workers were earning at or below $17.20 per hour in 2023.
When the new wage kicks in, the government said Ontario’s new minimum wage rate will be the second highest of the provinces, behind British Columbia’s $17.40 per hour.
The Ontario Living Wage Network, a coalition of employers, employees, non-profits and researchers, said in 2023 that at a minimum, a living wage in southwest Ontario was $18.65 per hour. That figure varies across the province, with the highest living wage being in the Greater Toronto Area at $25.05 an hour.
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Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives cancelled a planned minimum wage increase to $15 per hour from $14 after they took office in 2018, but then raised it to $15 in January 2022 and tied later increases to inflation.
— with files from The Canadian Press
