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Yukon’s minimum wage set to increase by $1 to $13.71 in April

The increase will make the Yukon’s minimum wage the fourth-highest in the country
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Community Services Minister John Streicker in the legislative assembly March 7, 2019. Streicker says the new minimum wage will “support workers who need it most while ensuring that Yukon businesses can continue to attract and retain workers in a tight labour market.”

Minimum wage in the Yukon is set to increase by $1 per hour come April 1.

In a press release Feb. 20, the Yukon government announced that minimum wage in the territory will be $13.71 per hour beginning in April, up from the current rate of $12.71.

The change is a two per cent increase based on the 2019 consumer price index for Whitehorse, the press release said, plus an additional 75 cents.

The Yukon government approved the increase after an order made by the Employment Standards Board, which considered things like changes in the annual consumer price index (a measure that examines the baseline cost of goods and services like transportation, food and gas), changes to minimum wage in other jurisdictions and an economic impact analysis of wage increases before making the order.

“This increase to minimum wage will support workers who need it most while ensuring that Yukon businesses can continue to attract and retain workers in a tight labour market,” Community Services Minister John Streicker said in the press release.

The change also means that the Yukon will have the highest minimum wage of the territories (it’s $13.46 and $13 in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, respectively) and fourth-highest minimum wage in the country, topped only by Alberta ($15 an hour), Ontario ($14 an hour) and British Columbia ($13.85 an hour, although it’s set to rise to $14.60 in June).

The Yukon’s minimum wage rose in 2019 from $11.51 to its current rate.

In October 2019, the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition released its annual report on the cost of living in the territory, which found that the “living wage” in the Yukon — basically, the minimum that two adults with two kids living in Whitehorse would have to earn to meet all their basic needs — was $19.07 an hour.

Contact Jackie Hong at jackie.hong@yukon-news.com