In the News

Labour Force Survey, January 2022

Reduction of Purchasing Power from Workers’ Wages and Salaries

On a year-over-year basis from January 2021 to January this year, payment to workers for their capacity to work rose 2.4 per cent, which is half the rise in year-over-year prices for the general basket of commodities StatCan uses to gauge price inflation.

(Note from StatCan: The concentration of January 2022 employment losses in lower-wage industries did not have a significant impact on year-over-year wage change, partly because employment in these industries experienced similar losses in January 2021 as a result of the third wave of COVID-19.)

The overall increase for prices from December 2020 to December 21 was 4.8 per cent. This represents a general loss of 2.4 per cent in workers’ purchasing power from the wages they receive for the sale of their capacity to work to an employer.

Statistics Canada reported on January 12 that the annual rate of price inflation of 4.8 per cent is the highest in 30 years.

A list of prices from December and their percentage increase in parentheses from the year before includes the following articles of consumption:

– Cooking or salad oil, one litre — $4.30 (41.4 per cent)
– Regular, unleaded gasoline at self-service stations — 140 cents/litre (34.1 per cent)
– White sugar, two kilograms — $2.64 (21.6 per cent)
– Stewing beef, one kilogram — $18.55 (17.2 per cent)
– Bacon, 500 grams — $8.66 (17.2 per cent)
– Canned tomatoes, 796 millilitres — $1.71 (15.5 per cent)
– Corn flakes, 675 grams — $6.67 (15 per cent)
– Sirloin steak, one kilogram — $25.94 (14.5 per cent)
– Prime rib roast, one kilogram — $42.30 (13.7 per cent)
– Carrots, one kilogram — $2.43 (13.5 per cent)
– Round steak, one kilogram — $19.66 (11.3 per cent)
– Ketchup, one litre — $4.39 (11.1 per cent)
– Wieners, 450 grams — $5.43 (10.8 per cent)
– Instant coffee, 200 grams — $7.44 (10.4 per cent)

(Workers’ Forum, posted February 9, 2022)