A new study out of the Fraser Institute says government workers in Atlantic Canada get paid 6.3 per cent more on average than comparable workers in the private sector.
The study, which looks at employees at the municipal, provincial, and federal levels, uses data from 2024.
The report states that before making wage-gap adjustments to the data, the difference with the private sector was 33 per cent higher wages.
There are big differences in terms of work benefits as well.
In Newfoundland and Labrador specifically, the report finds that over 90 per cent of government workers are covered by pension plans compared to 23.5 per cent for the private sector; government workers get 10 more personal days off, and the average age of retirement is 61.5 compared to 64 for private workers.
(Fraser Institute)
Grady Munro, a policy analyst at the institute, says that governments should be providing competitive compensation to attract qualified workers, but ” clearly wages and benefits in the government sector are out of step with the private sector.”
