The $34.95/hr average is stated as the average for permanent positions. I doubt many of the service industry jobs are permanent positions.

My thoughts also. Who is making that much?

Meanwhile a few posts down the Lemmy feed: Families and CEOs behind Loblaw, Empire, Metro have donated $150,000 to two main parties

"The gains" in your quote (when taken in a fuller context) is referring to number of jobs added. It's not related to the average hourly wage.

I can almost guarantee you that very few (if any) service industry jobs are paying $34.95 per hour.

Even if it was, it means that two full time average salaries aren't even enough to buy a less than average dwelling in any Canadian cities.

I can almost guarantee you that very few (if any) service industry jobs are paying $34.95 per hour.

And if they are, those aren't anywhere near full time hours.

Very high paying jobs may skew this number. Median wage is probably the more useful way to look at country level pay

For a concrete example of what @asterfield@lemmy.world said, if there are 10 workers, and 9 of them are making minimum wage ($17.40 in BC), then the remaining worker would make $192.90/hr. $1772.40/hr if 99/100 make minimum wage.

Median is definitely the better measure, though no single measure is adequate to answer the question of whether Canadians are better off than they were last year.

in the one where they report average instead of median or better yet the center modal.

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