Median employment earnings for men in B.C. have plummeted by a third since 1976, a change economists say is driven by immigration, fewer well-paying jobs in the forest and paper industries and increasing numbers of retirees cutting back to part-time hours before leaving the labour force.
B.C. had the highest median income in Canada for men in 1976, at just over $50,000 in 2011 dollars, but that dropped to just over $33,000 in 2011, lower than both the Prairies and Ontario, according to an analysis of Statistics Canada data by University of B.C. economist Kevin Milligan. This mirrored a national trend of declining employment income for men, but the trend was most pronounced in B.C.
Median employment earnings for women, while still significantly less than men, showed a slight increase nationally over the same period. That trend was not reflected in B.C., where employment income for women has stagnated at around $22,000.
“The struggle to keep afloat in B.C. is a real one,” said UBC economist Nicole Fortin.
Part of the reason is a result of immigration, which has increased significantly in the last 30 years, Fortin said. New immigrants tend to earn less than their Canadian-born counterparts for a number of reasons, which include credentials not being recognized, a lack of professional networks and sometimes a limited ability to communicate in an official language. The gap narrows the longer an immigrant spends in the country.
Median incomes for men, but not women, declined most significantly in the three provinces that are home to most of the country’s immigrants: Ontario, Quebec and B.C.
But there are other factors at play: a drop in the number of manufacturing jobs in Ontario and Quebec, and in B.C. fewer well-paying jobs in the forest and paper industries as a result of softer demand and mechanization, Fortin said.
The data includes only income from employment or self employment. It does not include other sources of income, such as pensions or investments.
Part-time work drags the median income figure down, Milligan said. This is part of the reason median incomes for women are so much lower, because women are more likely to work part time. But it is also a factor that applies to people approaching retirement, who tend to work part time before leaving the workforce completely, Milligan said.
B.C.’s aging population could certainly be a factor in declining employment earnings, Fortin said, but noted that Atlantic Canada also has an aging workforce and employment income has been slowly climbing in that region, especially for women.
B.C.’s relative strength in the 1970s was derived from strong sawmill and paper industries and unions that were able to negotiate relatively high wages for their members, Fortin said, adding that declining demand and mechanization have taken a toll on the industries.
But sawmill workers who have lost their jobs are often able to find better paying positions in B.C.’s oil and gas sector, said Terry Tate, project manager for the Northern Skills Training Program in Prince George.
Workers approaching retirement often cut back to part-time hours, but collect pensions as well, Tate said, so their overall income doesn’t suffer. That pension income would not be reflected in the StatsCan data.
— With a file from Matthew Robinson
