Quebec’s minimum wage will be raised to $ 14.25 an hour on Sunday, May 1, an increase of 75 cents per hour.
The increase in the total minimum wage will benefit 301,100 people in Quebec, according to the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Solidarity.
For tips tips, the minimum wage will rise to $ 11.40 an hour, an increase of 60 cents.
It should also be noted that the minimum wage due to an employee appointed exclusively for picking raspberries or strawberries is $ 4.23 (+ $ 0.22) and $ 1.13 (+ $ 0.06) per kilogram, respectively, according to the Ministry of labor.
SMALL BUSINESS HURTS
Employers point out that the 5.56 percent increase in the minimum wage represents an additional $ 237.1 million in business costs, which worries the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB), which notes that the new increase comes in the context of volatility. small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) affected by rising costs.
Two years of health restrictions have left an average debt of $ 108,000 to Quebec SMEs, as well as lower incomes for most.
“The reality is that their capacity to absorb cost increases is not infinite,” said Francois Vincent, CFIB’s vice president for Quebec, in a press release.
No less than 60% of SMEs believe that the increase in costs has a significant negative impact on their business, said the SME group, which has 95,000 members in all sectors and regions.
Vincent’s said that “this will have a definite impact on entrepreneurs who will have no choice but to raise prices.”
The CFIB believes that there are other solutions in the Quebec government to help employers offer better wage conditions to their employees, such as offering tax credits to SMEs or reducing payroll taxes.
WORKERS ARE GETTING POORER
The Quebec Without Poverty team has a different view.
It says the 75-cent increase in the hourly minimum wage is “irresponsible and offensive to the hundreds of thousands of workers who live in poverty and are losing more and more of their purchasing power every day.”
“With its ridiculous increase in the minimum wage, the government not only refuses to help these people get out of poverty, but also watches them impoverish without trembling,” said collective spokeswoman Virginie Larivier.
She pointed out that this increase in the minimum wage did not even compensate for the effect of the consumer price index (CPI), which rose 6.7% from March 2021 to March 2022 in Quebec, “unprecedented over the past 30 years.” .
“Last November, food banks in Quebec reminded us that the number of people with employment income who used their services had increased by 40 percent due to the pandemic and high inflation,” she said. “Everything suggests that the trend is not about to be reversed and the government is washing its hands of it!”
Since last fall, the Quebec Without Poverty Collective, which includes 36 organizations, has been pushing for a minimum wage of at least $ 18 an hour.
INSUFFICIENT, QUIBEC SOLIDER
Alexander Leduc, Québec Solidaire’s representative for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, also criticized the Legault government’s outdated vision of a minimum wage in Quebec.
“Every week I come across companies that publish starting salaries above the minimum wage,” Ledyuk said. “These businesses have learned something the government still doesn’t understand: a viable minimum wage is a way to combat recruitment difficulties because it makes minimum wage jobs more attractive.”
A month ago, Labor Minister Jean Boulet suggested that the minimum wage could exceed $ 15 an hour by 2023.
According to the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve MNA, the symbolic amount that has long been claimed is no longer relevant.
“Honestly! $ 15, we needed it five years ago. Today it’s not a viable salary,” he said. “We have been talking for months about the cost of living crisis. Does Mr Boule believe that people on the minimum wage are immune to the increase in all basic goods? I have the misfortune to tell him that this is not the case and that today the decent and viable minimum wage is $ 18 an hour. “
– This report of The Canadian Press was first published in French on 1 May 2022.
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