History Of Ontario Minimum Wage

IMPACTS OF CHANGING MINIMUM WAGE

Raising minimum wage would have remarkable impacts - both negative and positive, on the entire market, composing of:

• individual
• business
• government.

Individual:

Pros:

• Workers can afford further living expenses or upgrade their living standards, such as: pay their bills on time, build higher budget for future plans, mortgage and so forth.

Cons:

• If the employers want to maintain their Payroll budget, they would reduce the numbers of employees or the hours for those who remained. Consequently, the competition for jobs, especially part-time jobs would be fiercer due to the shortage of supply.

Business:

Pros

• Factually, minimum wage workers are the main customers of low-cost products and services, when they have higher income, for example: they can dine out or purchase more than usual, hence, medium and small restaurants, affordable grocery or clothing stores are the most beneficial.

Cons:

• As the mentioned issue, most of big firms will meet difficulties when they want to either maintain their working productivity or HR expenses.
• Moreover, other employee classes would want to raise their payroll to maintain a relative hierarchy of wages according to employee skill levels.

Government:

Pros:

• As higher income, higher taxes amount that government can collected. Income can come from individuals, or business which sell or provide more products and services.

Cons:

• Government also have minimum-wage workers, hence, they will have HR problem as Business. EMPLOYMENT CHANGES IN ONTARIO:Year by year, the employment growth in Ontario has been escalating by 2% and this employment rate is driven by a hike in full time employment rate of 2. 9% and that of fall in part time employment by -2. 4% in 2018. . Further the hourly wage increased by 4. 4% to $27. 43 in 2018. Though there have been a lot of deviations in the unemployment rate in the previous decade,and the unemployment rate in Ontario is 5. 8% in 2018 in comparison to 9. 1% in 2008 as shown in the graph below.

INFLATION RATE IN ONTARIO:

Moving further, the inflation rate in the last 10 years has gone up by 18. 45% whereas it is 48. 12% in the previous two decades that is in 1998. Due to rise in inflation, government has to take certain steps so as to meet the basic necessities of a layman and therefore increase the minimum wage rate with the passage of time.

POPULATION STIMULATING DEMAND AND SUPPLY:

Ontario is the most populous province of Canada that covers 40% of the country's population that includes maximum number of immigrants from all over the world that is also responsible for changes in prevailing wage rates. As population triggers demand and supply for the goods and services and therefore has a direct connection with the increasing ratio of average earnings of residents and immigrants living in Ontario. Overall if the economic scenario is transforming due to above reasons, it becomes essential to take certain measures in the form of doing increment in the wage system at regular intervals so as to treat the worth of workers fairly by employers and the government.