Fewer employees in province earning minimum wage, says government
Minimum wage workers in New Brunswick will see a bump in their wages come April.
The province’s minimum wage will increase to $15.65 per hour on April 1, up from the current rate of $15.30 per hour.
“As the cost of living rises, it is important that we continue to raise wages, but the minimum wage is just one tool that we have to help New Brunswickers earn more,” said Jean-Claude D’Amours, acting minister of post-secondary education, training and labour.
“It is encouraging that, even as the number of people working across the province increases, the number of people earning minimum wage remains relatively low.”
Last year, New Brunswick’s minimum pay moved up to $15.30 per hour from $14.75 per hour.
Overall, 6% of all employees in the province were earning the minimum wage in 2024, down from 6.7% in 2023.
More than half (56%) of those earning minimum wage were working part time, and just under one-third (32%) of all minimum wage earners were 15 to 19 years of age.
“Our government understands that trying to get by on minimum wage is tough, and that’s why we are committed to promoting post-secondary education, strategic supports through WorkingNB that help connect and prepare people for better-paying jobs, and encouraging participation in apprenticeship through Skilled Trades NB,” said D’Amours.
The minimum wage rate is indexed to New Brunswick’s consumer price index, rounded to the nearest five cents. The consumer price index grew by 2.2% in 2024.
While the province has promoted job training and apprenticeship programs aimed at helping workers move into higher-paying roles, New Brunswick’s minimum wage remains one of the lowest in the country, said Vicki Hogarth, news director at CHCO-TV, on social media, “though it is set to rise again next year under the province’s current indexing system.”
While there has been much debate about how an increase to minimum wage affects employment and profits, there’s also the question of how it affects worker productivity.
In looking at the change at two retail stores in the U.S., in areas both with and without higher mandated minimum wages, Erika Deserranno, associate professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Kellogg, noted that a $1 increase in minimum wage improved low performers’ productivity by 22.6%, but had no observable effect on high performers.
In addition, the link between wage and productivity was seen only in stores with more supervisors to monitor employees. In the presence of a higher minimum wage, high monitoring led to 6.6 percent more productivity across workers, while low monitoring led to a 9.4-percent decrease in productivity, said Deserranno.
“If you’re in a store where there is very little monitoring and where low effort doesn’t necessarily cause you to be fired, a higher minimum wage actually reduces productivity,” she said.
Also notable: a $1 increase in the minimum wage decreased profits per hour by 16 percent at the store, found the Kellogg researchers.
