Quebec employers go above minimum wage to attract workers

The minimum wage will cross the symbolic $15-an-hour mark in less than two weeks in Quebec, but already many companies are having to set their own minimum wage much higher to hope to recruit the scarce commodity of people available on the job market.

On the sidelines of the Job and Continuing Education Fair, which will be held Wednesday and Thursday at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, an in-house survey conducted by the event's organizers revealed that many companies will be open to offering much more attractive salaries to employees who used to earn minimum wage in order to convince them to join their ranks.

In some cases, the posted wage could even be $5 to $7 higher than the $15.25 that will be mandatory as of May 1 in Quebec.

"We've heard a lot from some companies that say it's going to hurt them, but what we're seeing from the survey is that there are some companies that are not only going to welcome this increase, but are going to go even further," explained Éric Boutié, director of L'Événement Carrières, in an interview with The Canadian Press.

"The internal survey we conducted among our exhibitors showed that almost 30 per cent of employers would offer $5 to $7 more than the minimum wage that will come into effect on May 1. I understand from this result that companies are having difficulty attracting labour and that one of the arguments for attracting them is the salary."

According to Boutié, it is therefore clear that "now, the minimum wage is no longer sufficient -- and is far from sufficient -- to attract human resources, even for unskilled jobs."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published in French on April 18, 2023.