Higher minimum wages could hurt employment
Posted Feb 10, 2011 10:11 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A new report suggests by increasing the minimum wage, provinces risk increasing unemployment.
Released by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, spokesman Dan Kelly tells 660News, owners aim to offer competitive wages to help them attract and retain good staff.
“So as the cost of wages goes up especially for entry level workers in the work force, the employers ability to create the job in the first place becomes that much more challenging,” he says.
Contrary to popular belief, the CFIB believes minimum wage increases adversely affect the national economy.
“If there was a 10 per cent increase in the minimum wage across Canada which is very realistic and has happened over the course of the last few years in several provinces, that would cost the country over 300,000 jobs,” says Kelly.
They’re calling on reforms to the income-tax, while the country is in a time of slow-recovery.
“Governments should ensure that low-income workers do not pay income taxes at all because that’s a real way for low-income earners to have more in their pockets at the end of the month as opposed to paying it out in additional taxation,” he explains.
Kelly says one government that’s been more responsible is Alberta’s, by raising the personal exemption, so fewer low-income earners have to pay tax compared to other provinces.
