BC’s Minimum Wage Goes Up

Sunday May 1^st, 2011 invited the first raise to minimum wage in years. The provincial government commenced the first of three phases of wage increases that will eventually lead to a maximum increase in minimum wage from $8/hour to $10.25/hour. The increase that took effect Sunday will put minimum wage up to $8.75. British Columbians will see two more scheduled increases to minimum wage at a rate of $.075: one in November of this year and again in May 2012.

Other changes realized in this process of increasing minimum wage were the abolishment of the training wage for new workers which had them making only $6.75/hour, and a capped increase to $9.00/hour by next year for those employees who are liquor servers.

British Columbia will remain the province with the lowest minimum wage in Canada even after the increase Sunday. While many believe that these increases will cause massive job losses in our province due to small businesses being unable to support the new minimum wage, sources from The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives seem critical of these theories.