This just in from the “Stuff you already Know Department”: Computer and Telecom jobs pay well in Canada.
I was looking for income distribution information in Canada from StatsCan - or anywhere really. I never did find the histogram I was looking for but I did find out how completely out of touch it think the StatsCan reports are.
In a 2007 Report: “Earnings in the Last Decade” there was some raw data that looked promising. Risking a severe social faux pas I have to say it always amazes me where the average household income levels sit for our supposedly rich country - ($35K). I know my wife and I don’t feel all that rich even though we make considerably more. In fact this feeling is what made me go looking in the first place. I we feel the pinch what are others doing? Again - we ain’t rich!
So here is a quick chart I put together that summarizes income distribution in 2002 for sectors where I find my friends and family working:
What suprised me the most is the choice of income binning. The definition of the quintiles shows at best anachronistic pay expectations. In my sector 41% - almost half of the population is binned in the$ 25/hr our more slot. This is just plain shoddy work. I know people in this industry that work from $20/hr at the low end to over $250 per hour and beyond. That distribution is neatly packed away in the >$25/hr or more category. This is actually the information I was looking for. What a joke. What’s more insidious is the implied systemic reenforcement that $25 is rich. Raise your sites guys.
When compared against other sectors you can see why the quintiles are defined as they are. For those in the golden triangle that like to promote advanced manufacturing as our core industrial strength and future - give your freakin’ head a shake. Pay is shit and work is slipping to Asia. Open your eyes.
[…] When compared against other sectors you can see why the quintiles are defined as they are. For those in the golden triangle that like to promote advanced manufacturing as our core industrial strength and future - give your freakin’ head a shake. Pay is shit and work is slipping to Asia. Open your eyes. Source: StatsCan out of Touch, or Am I? […]
I posted this at Tris Hussey’s site, but since he was linking to this post I thought I should put it here as well:
In my experience, working in both the US and Canada, Canadian tech salaries seem to be about 75%-85% of the same salary in the US. I can remember the CEO of Nortel complaining about high tax rates in Canada while neglecting to mention that the salary for somebody like a product manager was 90k in Canada and 120k in the US, without even taking into account the exchange rate.
Canadian companies seem to focus heavily on new grads with lower salary requirements.
My beef wasn’t really the Canadian pay rate but the reporting. 41% of people are “off the chart” which clearly implies that the chart is scaled wrong. I’m interested in the shape of that tail - that StatsCan balls up in one big lump.