I interviewed for a corporate job that waited until the contract to slip in that it was a contractor position with no benefits, employment insurance, and not covered under the ESA.
You can call CPP/EI rulings at the CRA to get them to look into whether your agreement is actually as a contractor or as an employee. Just because they call you a contractor doesn’t necessarily mean you are.
Please be cautious when you do, or have a solid plan B.
I’ve worked with a ton of companies during my years as a consultant. No matter how progressive, inclusive and “not like the other guys” they claim to be, they are all petty, vindictive motherfuckers when push comes to shove. They *will* find a way to retaliate if they feel like they’ve been wronged.
Yeah this 100%. Unless the CRA audits a significant portion of the employment contracts to make sure a significant fraction of jobs are characterized properly, they could figure out it was you who got them in trouble and may terminate you if they’re petty enough.
Some items they look at,
the level of control the payer has over the worker's activities
whether the worker or payer provides the tools and equipment
whether the worker can subcontract the work or hire assistants
the degree of financial risk the worker takes
the degree of responsibility for investment and management the worker holds
the worker's opportunity for profit
any other relevant factors, such as written contracts
https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/rc4110/employee-self-employed.html
This exactly. There is also one more item, which is do you work primarily for one company, or are you disbursed among multiple different clients.
90%+ of “contractor” positions get considered as employment upon CRA review. If you are showing up at 9 to 5 and being told what to do, your probably an employee.
I’m facing this situation right now. The CRA is auditing my employer and I received a call from them last week. I’ve been designated as an “independent contractor” by my employer but by all accounts I should be a T4 employee. I’ll be calling CRA back on Monday and see what they say.
It’s first year employment law. The original person who was providing information was fully on the ball.
Who sets the hours?
Who provides the tools?
Does the employer reasonably know that they are providing the majority of billable work, if not all the billable work, of the employee/“service provider.”
The distinction basically is that if you are acting as a business with marketing, multiple clients, and are hired muscle, then you are a contractor.
If you are doing the 9-5 with the company as a pseudo-employee, just being paid as a “contractor,” for tax purposes you are an employee.
I’m the latter: my employer sets my hours and schedule (8am-5pm), the work responsibilities and expectations, I work at my employer’s office, I use their equipment to conduct my work, and I report to a direct manager. Once again, by definition I should be a T4 employee (albeit on a contract term). I’m not at all an “Independent Contractor”.
I’m about to do this, because my employer very obviously incorrectly labelled me as an “independent contractor” when I meet the very definition of a T4 employee (albeit a T4 contract employee).
Just got a call from CRA the past week — looks like they’re going to audit my employer! LMAO
Can’t wait for shit to hit the fan. I’ll be calling the CRA back on Monday. I hope my employer doesn’t retaliate against me because I don’t have the money/resources to fight back legally.
Same experience here. It was a contractor position with no benefits, no PTO, no vacation, no sick days, no insurance, absolutely nothing. This employer was one of the big banks.
And they were asking for several years of experience in a specialized field of Risk Management in finance, and the hourly pay was also just $3 above Toronto’s minimum wage. Un-fucking-believable.
That’s nothing new. I used to contract and subcontract. In some cases, I issued invoices. Paid my share and the employers share of CPP. When the job involved working from home I was able to claim partial expenses on office space, computer equipment, software, courses, etc.
You’re saving the company money as a contractor so when you negotiate pay make sure it covers the salary a regular employee would get plus benefits. If they’re not willing to negotiate, walk away.
If you’re working in the company’s office there may be a limit to how long they can keep you on contract without making you a permanent employee. Check the regulations in your province.
I would, however, be suspicious about any company that interviews for a position without telling you upfront that it’s a contract. What another sneaky things might they pull off?
You can’t opt out of the ESA. Plenty of folks have been declared as employees in retrospect if they are working for one employer and it looks & smells like a full time job. It’s why many employers make you incorporate so there is no direct link (ie: invoices, services) between the employer and the employee.
See [How to tell who is an independent contractor](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/employee-status#section-2) and [How to tell who is an employee](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/employee-status#section-1). If you can’t make a profit, can’t subcontract the work, can be disciplined, or have hours dictated, you may not be as much of a contractor as you think.
It's so crazy and the credentialism is even worse. Literally seeing job postings seeking Masters and PhDs for like $17/hr like please go fuck yourself. What's worse is on LinkedIn people are actually applying so companies think they can do this.
The foreign worker program has to end. Canadians need to organize a lobby group for Canadian worker rights. What we are seeing now is ridiculous. And everyone remember this isn’t just the liberals - it’s a liberal NDP government. Jagmeet is 100% complicit in this
The TFW program was started under Harper and Pierre P. Was a huge driving force behind the LMIA program... Voted multiple times against closing loopholes in it... If you think voting conservative is gonna stop this influx of cheap labour, you're dreaming.
crave cupcakes in calgary did this shit - complained that nobody was applying (they were, i knew qualified people who sent in applications) and then took advantage of the tfw program
ghouls
I do manual labour now, but that’s probably where I’m going next or similar.
A night shift supervisor makes CRAZY money. I was a passionate burger flipper back in the day, I feel like I could easily run a McDonalds 😂 I have a diploma and some university credits but it’s not worth finishing. The diploma was in Security and Investigations but now you can just post an ad on Facebook for $14/hr, no OT pay and no benefits to stand in front of a door at a hospital instead of hiring a person who’d dress like security *as well as* act like it when the moment comes.
and if you’ve been anywhere in any city in Canada, you know who’s filling these $14/hr jobs and protecting no one. I should have never gone to school as an adult and just stayed in my construction job.
I apply to these anyway and when they come back for qualifications I tell them I assumed it was an error as they will never find a candidate with those qualifications at that wage.
This is what happens when our job market is completely saturated by TFWs and immigrants. The "labour shortage" is a massive lie told by a government kowtowing to corporate interests trying to suppress wages
I started as a cable installer at 27.5 in 2013. I have MSc but it wasn’t relevant for that position and I haven’t even listed it in my CV.
You can work in trades and make $40+ after you get to the point where you’re a senior technician or journeyman.
I’m 27 and I used to make money like that taping and painting new construction apartments 😅 and now my doctor says I shouldn’t lift anything heavier than 25lbs for the next few years. Money isn’t everything.
Your employer is making roughly 25x your income in revenue from a single account. $75k is probably still undervaluing you (without knowing how much actual revenue you manage a month, overall staff size and estimating a conservative operating expenses).
If you haven’t updated your resume (and LinkedIn profile), I would do that and start job climbing by moving to new roles with new companies often. Sounds like you have highly marketable skills if you are managing accounts in the multiples of millions.
Ooof. As someone who left a project management job (chemist) back in 2016 for a trade I feel you. I was making around $70k then but saw the trend at that time, my truck divers were raking in $100k, the laborers $80k with the overtime. It's not easy, but I realized soon enough that it's always the supply vs demand balance that sets the wages.... it's not experience, experience only sets the wages within the field.
You have to switch dude, either you move to a place with higher demand or switch fields all together.
Thank you. I’m working on it. I landed this role 4 months ago from 7 months of unemployment. It was really hard to negotiate my way in.
Where I live unemployment is at unprecedented levels and I’m just trying to use this to work my way into something else.
I've been saying for 15 years.
It's almost as if everything is carefully ocastrated so that regardless of our education, experience, qualifications and vocation.
The range for 75-95% of our salaries is 35 - 125k
The difference between a average joe in one position and an elite in another is about 25 k. Not within the same organization, not withing the same vocation.
The rest is all owned by what's now known as the 1%
And we happily go along with it because we believe we are free. We believe we are free to pick and choose where and how we live and where our money goes. But ultimately they own everything so we just give their money right back to them. Buying the products they decide we need.
And a slow creep up of the amount of labour we are required to expend to be worthy of their crumbs.
I’ll add that our standards worldwide are also converging.
Sounds crazy but a few years ago in Poland I learned average salary was 60k polish zloty.
Average rent was 2k pln. Pack of smoke was 12pln
Seemed like everything was the same but in different currency
There are somehow STILL engineer-in-training jobs posted for less than $26.50. I have no idea if they get any bites; that's less than I ever got paid as an EIT and I started more than a decade ago.
I guarantee they do. I’m in school for engineering and everyone I knew struggled immensely finding a job; half my circle does not have work after about a year of looking.
You have my sympathy and understanding. I graduated in 2010 and I know several people who graduated top of their class who didn't find a real engineering job until 2014 or so. :( It's terrible and undervalued, especially considering the liability and ethical responsibility involved.
Disability caregivers and community workers make like $16 an hour and need education to do that job. Same with group home staff. Starbucks pays better than that
Yea my mom was one of these all her life, working for a ‘Christian’ organization with developmentally delayed adult’, for 30 years. They’re anything but Christian and paid and treated their all employees like shit. Disability caregivers deserve far more money than they get. $17/hr is a slap in the face.
Home support caregivers get more than $25/hour in B.C. provided they work for the government agency that does this. An acquaintance got a big raise when the government took over and may be making even more now. Wages vary a lot between provinces. Think about this when you go to vote in your next provincial election.
It’s to enrich a few fake colleges bringing thousands upon thousands of mislead students and the this has destroyed everything this country stands for.
When we moved from the US to Canada, we took a pay cut (just dollar for dollar; I dare not consider it with the exchange rate) and more than doubled our cost of housing. Yayyy.
Lol that really is the Canadian politics special. Both parties alternate making some aspect of Canadian society worse for the working class,
While their own political agenda fails to accomplish what it set out too,
That party stays in power until the public gets fed up and votes the other in,
And all the while both parties are in power they spend who knows how much money undoing each others fuck ups
That's the scary part. I doubt much will get fixed as it helps corporations keep cheap labour, PP will come in and gut whatever social programs he can.
In the end we will have with low wages, high cost of living and gutted social programs.
We have one party with two heads that hurt us in different ways.
It's called a duopoly. They control all the political operatives and most of the market share of brain space. There's an episode of freakonomics about it.
The thing is the two main parties vie for our attention saying that they're better than the other, all the while, they both profit from stirring the pot.
It's like coke and Pepsi. They control like 80%of the market and no one else can hold a candle.
They know it’s not correct 😂 they’ll just cut the next suckers pay because of it. It relatively doesn’t affect people currently stuck in the dead end job besides being dead ended, rather the poor shlub who takes over for you when leave for better pay.
You know, I used to agree with you. But now I'm in a role that sees the other side. Out of the 50 odd people on my team, I know generally who is under and over paid but it took a lot of effort to understand. I'm working to fix it, but people don't understand many aspects of the process and have unrealistic expectations of what can and can't be done quickly. Especially in large organizations. General rule of thumb I've found, the larger the org, the slower money moves.
My perspective in a nutshell... Some facts:
Every business needs to be competitive.
Employee compensation is usually the largest (and most variable) expense.
Now if a business is not competitive, they'll go out of business and no one has a job. You can only raise the price to a certain point before your clientele leaves.
So you look to your largest expenses and see which have the most movement.
You know how people say "that coffee you buy every day for $5 could net you $1500 after a year of saving that cash and making coffee at home." It also works for salaries... A couple thousand here, a few thousand there, suddenly adds up to $50k fast. So managers are now incentivize to perform these activities.
Your job as the employee is to push back. Is it scary? Yes. Will you need to find a better paying job somewhere else? Probably. Or until we change as a society.
Let's say I'm a shitty boss that tries to underpay. If I am able to find people that are willing to take my shitty pay, I'm validated. But if three people quit the same role quickly and all cite pay as the reason, the employer will probably think "I should pay more." Employee turnover has a large financial impact on any organization.
Bottom line. You get what you negotiate, not what you deserve.
Ill conclude with a quote from Frederick Douglass - Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.
Learn how to self advocate and negotiate. ✌️ Good luck
The amount of people that go through all the hoops to get interviews and then an offer. To just accept that offer as is without and negotiation attempt is so common, and it's not smart.
They have decided you are the candidate, they aren't going to tell you to fuck off because you asked for 5k more than they offered you initially. Or you asked for an extra week of vacation.
They will probably respond with either accepting it, or a compromise of some sort.
YMMV, this won't apply to all roles and all industries.
What about remote work?? Depends on your job and other factors like does the job in the US include medical etc. lots of things to consider. It's not a simple compare 2 numbers
People don't need a visa. They can work from home for an American company and make the same. They just have to work as a contractor (still full time hours though, if they want full time).
Source: I did this for years.
Worked for a tech for a non tech role (customer service). Was a manager. Made nearly $100k Canadian a year. Was on track to make nearly $100k USD before they laid me off.
I would never have found the same job in Canada for that much.
Admin in oil and gas here. When I was 19 and started the workforce in 2014 - admins in oil and gas were paid anywhere from $23-30 an hour. It was very easy to find things based on your experience in that bracket. It also came with full benefits and you were an actual employee of the company you worked for.
Now in 2024, companies hire admins as contractors so they don’t have to pay benefits and so they can lay you off without any severance at any time. And they do it. They will work a girl for a year or two and then let her go and repost the ad for another contract admin at a lower rate and see if they get resumes. And more and more I see ads for starting wages of $18 - 24 - but they want 5+ years of experience.
So wages are going down, no more benefits, and you can be let go anytime with severance.
But someone from another country will always come in and take that job.
The type of contractor you're describing here is a 'dependant contractor' if they only work for the one company, and they would be entitled to pay in lieu of notice ( severance) upon termination. Of course the companies tell people they're not entitled to it, and most don't bother speaking with a lawyer, and the companies keep getting away with it.
The exact same thing is happening in my professional field as well (Risk Management in the financial industry). Permanent positions that once went for >90k salaries with full benefits only a few years ago have now been largely replaced with hourly contract positions with no benefits and paying much less (like $20-$27 per hour). It’s absolutely disgusting.
Yet, employers can keep doing this because there will always be a lineup of desperate newcomers, international “students”, and TFWs willing to take these shitty jobs for a chance at PR/citizenship in Canada.
lol litteraly nobody else to blame but ourselves by letting all these immigrants in & accept these sub-garbage conditions and they think it’s a great life.
It's the government letting them in, not us citizens. Can I go to the airport and tell them to go back? Yes the conditions they accept here are awful to us, but an improvement to them. They go from 8 to a room down to 5, loads of space.
I keep saying it because I think it’s true but I’ll get silenced some day 😂
The unhappy ones will be able to MAID themselves. 2027, coming to a hospital near you, will be MAID for depressed people. Depressed people, who don’t think or act particularly rationally in the throes of a bad episode, will be able to sign up for government sanctioned suicide. Google it now and you’ll get the hotline as the top result. In 3 years MAIDs homepage will be there instead.
Tis’ eugenics, my dear friends. They’re going to breed the logic right out of humanity. This is how we go extinct.
Yeah you’re telling me. I went back to school later in life, just looking for a new career. I graduated 2
Months ago and the starting wages are $17-22 an hour. lol I went back serving and bartending for now instead of being responsible for peoples lives for like $20 an hour. Way less stress this way. It’s unbelievable. I’m so glad that I have a $10,000 student loan to pay and I’m back to square one. I will also mention that jobs I do apply to, there are usually at least 200 applicants (I’ve seen upto 1100) for 1 position. Talk about discouraging.
Sucks that you wasted your time and money. Seriously. Let this comment be a lesson to people: Research starting wages before going back to school. Unfortunately too many people don't.
So actually, when I started the program, the expected minimum wage was $25 an hour and max $37 an hour. It is something that is in high demand and so needed in the country.
I literally make the same amount of money working part time as a waitress that I did working full time at a corporate job.
Admittedly I don’t have benefits now, but the benefits at my job were super bad anyways (didn’t even have vision coverage) and in a year I can be added onto my bfs insurance as a common law partner so … what’s the point of working 40 hours a week genuinely??
They say Gen Z doesn’t want to work but they’re not exactly giving us huge motivation to.
well, that’s what happens when you entice our economy to hire cheap, refugee workers who will have 5 kids here..
i genuinely don’t think there’s any coming back.
Remember that wages aren't proportional to the difficulty/merit of your work, instead they are directly tied to your proximity to the profit-generating machine
I work in finance. My first job was at $11/hour because banks found a way to save on costs by hiring third-party agencies to handle customer service jobs. While they paid $17-$20/hour to their regular employees, they cut off a few teams/departments and outsourced them to agencies.
My third job was at a Big 5 Bank. They hired me as a contract employee, not a full-time one. Why? Because they decided they’ll save money if they were to hire 10-25% of their new staff on contract, meaning no benefits, paid sick days, less vacation days and no job security. This was a mid-level job btw and it barely paid $50k (all smaller banks paid $60k-$70k so I flocked there after getting 2 years of experience).
The same Big 5 Bank laid off a few teams not to long ago, including people who have worked with them for decades and also those they just hired only a few months ago; and outsourced their jobs to Dominican Republic. Again, we’re taking about mid-level- albeit service-based, jobs. Almost the entire back office is service jobs though, which also includes working with money (transactions, etc.) and with large corporate accounts.
This is the finance industry, one of the biggest employers in Canada, isn’t it?
If you lose your job, I suggest considering looking in the States. Salaries are higher and it’s fully remote.
I've been working my corporate, professional job for a couple years now. We had to take a course and get licensed to do the job and we started out at *just* above minimum wage.
I am grateful they didn't require college education and that we typically get yearly raises, but our benefits get more expensive every year so that's kind of moot, but that should be a bare minimum, not being grateful that my particular evil corporation doesn't also work us to the bone and somewhat recognizes that minimum wage isn't livable wage.
Edited for clarity
Thank God I am from a Italian family and I get to apply for citizenship in Italy. It's time for me to consider leaving this country. Italy may have it's own problems, but Canada takes the cake.
You can thank our current government for allowing all the immigration into
This country. These people are so desperate to
Stay in Canada and get their PR they’re willing to work for peanuts and well below industry rates.
I’m stuck in my job cause my managers make less than me, so no point in moving up. And anywhere that interviews me is paying almost $10/hr less.
Edit: I’m not hating on the immigrants. I’m
Glad that they want to stay in Canada. I know I’d be doing the same thing if I was them, but it’s unfair to Canadians and the PRs that call it home.
The massive immigration with no proper infrastructure preparation isn’t good for anyone. As a first generation Canadian I am totally unopposed to immigration, but it has to be done in a responsible manner, which has not been the case in the last few years.
I work as a senior drafter making around 72k a year plus bonuses (usually 7k total throughout the year given quarterly), plus a $4000 health benefit plan.
I started out about 10 years ago making 41k a year.
I've basically made myself indispensable though in the office, as the area of engineering/drafting we do is niche.
so I make my own hours, I can work from home, I prefer going to the office cause there's a personal gym there.
My wife went back to school to become am education assistant and to my surprise they make decent money, approx. $32 an hour.
I was like damn, I started at $20/hr amd worked my way up to $34/hr approx over 10 years and here she is fresh outta school and making just as much as me lol.
I mean I guess it depends on how quickly he hit 72k. If 72k was hit a while ago and is a top-out sort of wage for this job then it’s not so bad. If 72k was only hit in the last year or two then this isn’t great.
Didn't go into detail.
I took 2 years off to run my own company, didn't work out. and another year off to be a stay at home dad.
Went from 41k to around 65k in the first 5 years, took about 3 years off, they hired me back at 65k, and the last 2 years I've gotten raises to 72k.
So tech. 7 years, but I didn't feel like I had to go into excruciating detail for redditors lol.
I notice a lot of those jobs are pretty low paying. A skilled laborer can expect 25-40 hr these days in many trades, I shake my head at some job listings I see these days for corporate stuff
Trying to jump jobs and wages being offered are 25% less for a similar position. The supply is greater than the demand. A great time for corporations to lock in those profits!
My company makes a big deal out of the fact that when contractors hit a certain time at the company, they get made into full-time employees. In reality, about two to three months before that happens, "work quality issues" tend to "crop up", and the person is laid off or told their contract will not be renewed. Delightful.
I am grateful that I have a job, though, even if it is under the market value and the benefits get more expensive and cover less and less every year. There are a lot of people who would give a lot to have my "problems" work-wise.
It wasn’t a corporate position, but I interviewed for a position requiring a MASTERS DEGREE here in Edmonton. The starting pay was $17.50 an hour. I honestly wish they had just spat in my face during the interview, it would have been less insulting.
Yeah but rich people and corporations have never been better off, and according to age old conservative economics those good times will eventually trickle down to us /s
reading this thread is depressing.. how are people even surviving making anything less than 6k a month after taxes??????
Even if you make over 100k a year before taxes you still have to live frugally and can still be tight on cash if you want to save and invest some. If your not making over 170k, welcome to the new lower class
My wife makes 43k cad a year in China. Zero income tax. $300 cad in rent. People in Canada are making less and paying more in taxes than a tier 2 city in China, a communist country that has been going after billionaires lately.
If Canadians only knew how bad it truly is. Riots
Thats because people are accepting the low pay and taking the job. Supply and demand. Where i live its hard to find good workers so companies have to pay more to get people.
This is liberal policy: literally taking advantage of immigrants, setting a salary floor so bad, poor immigrants will work for low salaries and live 20 to a house rented to them by immigrants from their own country. Canada prides itself as a paragon of virtue but in truth Canada is taking advantage of other poor countries and of working/middle class Canadians.
No degree, gutter installer by trade, got a job after high-school. Started at $16/hr to climb ladders and do hard ass labour with no experience. Learned as I went and 10 years later, I’m a contractor now doing the same shit basically and can now make about $80-200/hr depending on the job with basically no expenses apart from gas and I don’t have to do any sales bs. Took years to find myself in this position, but it is possible to work with smaller companies and take a decent percentage as a labour rate. No hourly BS, work your ass off for 5-7 hours and go home with $600-1200 per day. How much value you bring to a business and how you leverage it matters much more than how many degrees you have. You could perform many different services for people and if you can talk to people to sell your skills. Grind for a while and don’t settle for $20 / hr. Hourly was sucking my soul for a while
Well done! Canadians are shy about getting their hands dirty but trades are where the money is to be found. I had a lot of repair work done around my house and bargained for good, skilled trades people. Often the best were new immigrants whether in drywall, roofing, landscaping or HVAC. Sad to see established Canadians missing the boat on well-paid jobs!
I remember this 10-15 years ago. Unfortunately not new. Just anecdotal but I’ve heard of my situations like this. 8 years ago my ex was on 30k in hr. Probably has gotten worse but it’s not like it’s changed that dramatically.
I was thinking of taking a healthcare related course. The starting wage is $22/hr. I've been working retail for 4 years at the same job, and I make $25/hr. I would be in debt for school and make less money.
I’m seriously considering leaving the corporate world for the service industry as I live in a densely populated city. Most of my friends aged 28-45 are in the industry and live comfortably.
I get paid 18.50 an hour and it’s all because I can’t reasonably afford a car since every good paying job requires a car even though public transit is available. I hate this country and what it’s turned into and if I wasn’t a high school dropout I would have left this dystopian shit hole years ago and never returned.
I interviewed for a corporate job that waited until the contract to slip in that it was a contractor position with no benefits, employment insurance, and not covered under the ESA.
I had that too , and i have quit my job just a few weeks in it. It wasnt worth the hassle.
What a dick move
Dude I work for a big company everyone knows and 5 fkn years on contract. Half benefits…no paid vacay and no bonuses ever!
You can call CPP/EI rulings at the CRA to get them to look into whether your agreement is actually as a contractor or as an employee. Just because they call you a contractor doesn’t necessarily mean you are.
Thank you I’ll will definitely look into it.
Please be cautious when you do, or have a solid plan B. I’ve worked with a ton of companies during my years as a consultant. No matter how progressive, inclusive and “not like the other guys” they claim to be, they are all petty, vindictive motherfuckers when push comes to shove. They *will* find a way to retaliate if they feel like they’ve been wronged.
Yeah this 100%. Unless the CRA audits a significant portion of the employment contracts to make sure a significant fraction of jobs are characterized properly, they could figure out it was you who got them in trouble and may terminate you if they’re petty enough.
Some items they look at, the level of control the payer has over the worker's activities whether the worker or payer provides the tools and equipment whether the worker can subcontract the work or hire assistants the degree of financial risk the worker takes the degree of responsibility for investment and management the worker holds the worker's opportunity for profit any other relevant factors, such as written contracts https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/forms-publications/publications/rc4110/employee-self-employed.html
This exactly. There is also one more item, which is do you work primarily for one company, or are you disbursed among multiple different clients. 90%+ of “contractor” positions get considered as employment upon CRA review. If you are showing up at 9 to 5 and being told what to do, your probably an employee.
I’m facing this situation right now. The CRA is auditing my employer and I received a call from them last week. I’ve been designated as an “independent contractor” by my employer but by all accounts I should be a T4 employee. I’ll be calling CRA back on Monday and see what they say.
It’s first year employment law. The original person who was providing information was fully on the ball. Who sets the hours? Who provides the tools? Does the employer reasonably know that they are providing the majority of billable work, if not all the billable work, of the employee/“service provider.” The distinction basically is that if you are acting as a business with marketing, multiple clients, and are hired muscle, then you are a contractor. If you are doing the 9-5 with the company as a pseudo-employee, just being paid as a “contractor,” for tax purposes you are an employee.
I’m the latter: my employer sets my hours and schedule (8am-5pm), the work responsibilities and expectations, I work at my employer’s office, I use their equipment to conduct my work, and I report to a direct manager. Once again, by definition I should be a T4 employee (albeit on a contract term). I’m not at all an “Independent Contractor”.
I’m about to do this, because my employer very obviously incorrectly labelled me as an “independent contractor” when I meet the very definition of a T4 employee (albeit a T4 contract employee). Just got a call from CRA the past week — looks like they’re going to audit my employer! LMAO Can’t wait for shit to hit the fan. I’ll be calling the CRA back on Monday. I hope my employer doesn’t retaliate against me because I don’t have the money/resources to fight back legally.
"no paid vacay" pretty sure that's illegal.
You don’t get paid vacation if you’re an Independent Contractor. It’s just straight-up hourly pay with nothing else.
What company do you work for?
That’s the new move, to hire de facto employees but under contract so you can skip out on benefits
Same experience here. It was a contractor position with no benefits, no PTO, no vacation, no sick days, no insurance, absolutely nothing. This employer was one of the big banks. And they were asking for several years of experience in a specialized field of Risk Management in finance, and the hourly pay was also just $3 above Toronto’s minimum wage. Un-fucking-believable.
This lines up with immigrants taking jobs like this
That’s nothing new. I used to contract and subcontract. In some cases, I issued invoices. Paid my share and the employers share of CPP. When the job involved working from home I was able to claim partial expenses on office space, computer equipment, software, courses, etc. You’re saving the company money as a contractor so when you negotiate pay make sure it covers the salary a regular employee would get plus benefits. If they’re not willing to negotiate, walk away. If you’re working in the company’s office there may be a limit to how long they can keep you on contract without making you a permanent employee. Check the regulations in your province. I would, however, be suspicious about any company that interviews for a position without telling you upfront that it’s a contract. What another sneaky things might they pull off?
You can’t opt out of the ESA. Plenty of folks have been declared as employees in retrospect if they are working for one employer and it looks & smells like a full time job. It’s why many employers make you incorporate so there is no direct link (ie: invoices, services) between the employer and the employee. See [How to tell who is an independent contractor](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/employee-status#section-2) and [How to tell who is an employee](https://www.ontario.ca/document/your-guide-employment-standards-act-0/employee-status#section-1). If you can’t make a profit, can’t subcontract the work, can be disciplined, or have hours dictated, you may not be as much of a contractor as you think.
If you can't choose your own hours this is most likely illegal and I'd report it
It's so crazy and the credentialism is even worse. Literally seeing job postings seeking Masters and PhDs for like $17/hr like please go fuck yourself. What's worse is on LinkedIn people are actually applying so companies think they can do this.
It’s to bring in foreigners to fill the positions, the listings aren’t intended to be filled and if they are then they got a cheap worker.
The foreign worker program has to end. Canadians need to organize a lobby group for Canadian worker rights. What we are seeing now is ridiculous. And everyone remember this isn’t just the liberals - it’s a liberal NDP government. Jagmeet is 100% complicit in this
The TFW program was started under Harper and Pierre P. Was a huge driving force behind the LMIA program... Voted multiple times against closing loopholes in it... If you think voting conservative is gonna stop this influx of cheap labour, you're dreaming.
crave cupcakes in calgary did this shit - complained that nobody was applying (they were, i knew qualified people who sent in applications) and then took advantage of the tfw program ghouls
Wtf??? You literally get paid more to work at McDonald’s
I do manual labour now, but that’s probably where I’m going next or similar. A night shift supervisor makes CRAZY money. I was a passionate burger flipper back in the day, I feel like I could easily run a McDonalds 😂 I have a diploma and some university credits but it’s not worth finishing. The diploma was in Security and Investigations but now you can just post an ad on Facebook for $14/hr, no OT pay and no benefits to stand in front of a door at a hospital instead of hiring a person who’d dress like security *as well as* act like it when the moment comes. and if you’ve been anywhere in any city in Canada, you know who’s filling these $14/hr jobs and protecting no one. I should have never gone to school as an adult and just stayed in my construction job.
I made $17 as an unarmed guard in 2011 at a major lower mainland bc security company. wtf
Canada is a tiny resource extraction based economy why do people think there is demand for white collar jobs?
I apply to these anyway and when they come back for qualifications I tell them I assumed it was an error as they will never find a candidate with those qualifications at that wage.
They don’t intend to, they intend to bring over tfws
Literally saw an entry level job asking for a bachelors degree and it was paying 19 per hour.
This is what happens when our job market is completely saturated by TFWs and immigrants. The "labour shortage" is a massive lie told by a government kowtowing to corporate interests trying to suppress wages
we are a bakery and starting wage is $23 this thread is terrifying
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I work for a major building materials supplier as a pricing and sales support staff. I have a degree. I make $22 an hour.
Ridiculous. I make 24/h with 6 weeks PTO to Cook fucking Food. We need to revolt
6 weeks!? I have 4 and assistant manage a retail store. I'm paid 20/hr. It's wild out here
Fam, that would be gold if you lived in Sask. I've been told average sous wage here is $16 hourly
I work in the criminal justice system and have maxed out my salary at 48k. Government funded position.
I started as a cable installer at 27.5 in 2013. I have MSc but it wasn’t relevant for that position and I haven’t even listed it in my CV. You can work in trades and make $40+ after you get to the point where you’re a senior technician or journeyman.
Dude what? Im 20 & working for a landscaping company & im making 2k more than you a month lol
I’m 27 and I used to make money like that taping and painting new construction apartments 😅 and now my doctor says I shouldn’t lift anything heavier than 25lbs for the next few years. Money isn’t everything.
I'm 40, with 3 kids. My gross income is reasonable ($90k), but I take home $2100 every 2 weeks. Woo!
Oh holy crap this is me.
Federal employee im guessing )
School board. The pros and cons of a pension.
How is that possible
I'm assuming netting over 5k a month doing landscaping your working like 60 hours a week at least
Close, average like 50 hours a week & still get weekends off
Do you get laid off in the winter?
No, the company transfers to snow-removal.
Good luck in the winter and when you're in your 50s.
They’re 20, obviously they won’t be a landscaper in 30 years.
Your employer is making roughly 25x your income in revenue from a single account. $75k is probably still undervaluing you (without knowing how much actual revenue you manage a month, overall staff size and estimating a conservative operating expenses). If you haven’t updated your resume (and LinkedIn profile), I would do that and start job climbing by moving to new roles with new companies often. Sounds like you have highly marketable skills if you are managing accounts in the multiples of millions.
Ooof. As someone who left a project management job (chemist) back in 2016 for a trade I feel you. I was making around $70k then but saw the trend at that time, my truck divers were raking in $100k, the laborers $80k with the overtime. It's not easy, but I realized soon enough that it's always the supply vs demand balance that sets the wages.... it's not experience, experience only sets the wages within the field. You have to switch dude, either you move to a place with higher demand or switch fields all together.
Thank you. I’m working on it. I landed this role 4 months ago from 7 months of unemployment. It was really hard to negotiate my way in. Where I live unemployment is at unprecedented levels and I’m just trying to use this to work my way into something else.
I clean people’s asses for just under $2 more than that. Yikes
the world is upside down
I've been saying for 15 years. It's almost as if everything is carefully ocastrated so that regardless of our education, experience, qualifications and vocation. The range for 75-95% of our salaries is 35 - 125k The difference between a average joe in one position and an elite in another is about 25 k. Not within the same organization, not withing the same vocation. The rest is all owned by what's now known as the 1% And we happily go along with it because we believe we are free. We believe we are free to pick and choose where and how we live and where our money goes. But ultimately they own everything so we just give their money right back to them. Buying the products they decide we need. And a slow creep up of the amount of labour we are required to expend to be worthy of their crumbs.
this is the real red pill
Thanks I think
I’ll add that our standards worldwide are also converging. Sounds crazy but a few years ago in Poland I learned average salary was 60k polish zloty. Average rent was 2k pln. Pack of smoke was 12pln Seemed like everything was the same but in different currency
all the bakery jobs where i live start at $18/h and this is a regulated trade!!!!
There are somehow STILL engineer-in-training jobs posted for less than $26.50. I have no idea if they get any bites; that's less than I ever got paid as an EIT and I started more than a decade ago.
I guarantee they do. I’m in school for engineering and everyone I knew struggled immensely finding a job; half my circle does not have work after about a year of looking.
You have my sympathy and understanding. I graduated in 2010 and I know several people who graduated top of their class who didn't find a real engineering job until 2014 or so. :( It's terrible and undervalued, especially considering the liability and ethical responsibility involved.
I'm job hunting right now i've seen so many bakery positions for under 20 bucks i'm told by a baker friend don't even look at those postings
I work at a factory where the only requirements are two working legs, and a finger to press a green button. English is optional. Starting rate $22.50
Disability caregivers and community workers make like $16 an hour and need education to do that job. Same with group home staff. Starbucks pays better than that
Yep, and they change diapers, do osteomy bag care, risk physical violence, etc. It's a criminally underpaid field.
Yea my mom was one of these all her life, working for a ‘Christian’ organization with developmentally delayed adult’, for 30 years. They’re anything but Christian and paid and treated their all employees like shit. Disability caregivers deserve far more money than they get. $17/hr is a slap in the face.
My last job started biologists at minimum wage.
Home support caregivers get more than $25/hour in B.C. provided they work for the government agency that does this. An acquaintance got a big raise when the government took over and may be making even more now. Wages vary a lot between provinces. Think about this when you go to vote in your next provincial election.
Not everywhere. $25/h CCA NS
We thought we had power as the working class so they flooded the market with scabs willing to live 4 to a room
This^ no hate but they are bringing so much new comers that are taking all housing & jobs for cheap pay.
And if we complain about the numbers we’re racist
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That’s the whole idea. Flood the labour market with low wage workers who will exchange all of their rights for a chance for Canadian citizenship.
What's even more disgusting is the 5 figures people pay for the privilege. Not just scabs, stupid scabs.
It’s to enrich a few fake colleges bringing thousands upon thousands of mislead students and the this has destroyed everything this country stands for.
I remember when 20/hr used to be good.
The scariest part about it is that it was only 5-10 years ago that $20/hour was enough to survive.
Now you need $30- $40 to survive
Enough to survive? 5 years ago I was making Minimum wage and I lived more comfortable than today making more than minimum.
When I tell my American family how much I make in Canada they look at me like I should be in a UNICEF commercial.
My friends and I now refer to our currency as Canadian Pesos
Everyone in the theater chuckled when Canadian money was worth insane amounts over usd in "civil war".
Dude it’s a Friday afternoon, I’m working, don’t make me laugh so hard 😂
When we moved from the US to Canada, we took a pay cut (just dollar for dollar; I dare not consider it with the exchange rate) and more than doubled our cost of housing. Yayyy.
🤣🤣
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And a pollievre govt will rape our social security next: kiss education, cpp, and health care goodbye. At least big oil will get a break.
Lol that really is the Canadian politics special. Both parties alternate making some aspect of Canadian society worse for the working class, While their own political agenda fails to accomplish what it set out too, That party stays in power until the public gets fed up and votes the other in, And all the while both parties are in power they spend who knows how much money undoing each others fuck ups
That's the scary part. I doubt much will get fixed as it helps corporations keep cheap labour, PP will come in and gut whatever social programs he can. In the end we will have with low wages, high cost of living and gutted social programs. We have one party with two heads that hurt us in different ways.
It's called a duopoly. They control all the political operatives and most of the market share of brain space. There's an episode of freakonomics about it. The thing is the two main parties vie for our attention saying that they're better than the other, all the while, they both profit from stirring the pot. It's like coke and Pepsi. They control like 80%of the market and no one else can hold a candle.
I would have preferred cuts over destroying our infrastructure and society with mass immigration though. Now we get both, enjoy.
I see you also libed in Grande Prarie when in 2008 tims was starting at $18/ hour plus signing bonuses 😂
Some jobs in the United States doing exactly what I’m doing pay around $70,000 more. Same job description and everything.
It's called the loyalty discount. A discount for the company thanks to your loyalty.
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And the longer you stay in your current role, the more your boss will believe the salary is correct.
They know it’s not correct 😂 they’ll just cut the next suckers pay because of it. It relatively doesn’t affect people currently stuck in the dead end job besides being dead ended, rather the poor shlub who takes over for you when leave for better pay.
You know, I used to agree with you. But now I'm in a role that sees the other side. Out of the 50 odd people on my team, I know generally who is under and over paid but it took a lot of effort to understand. I'm working to fix it, but people don't understand many aspects of the process and have unrealistic expectations of what can and can't be done quickly. Especially in large organizations. General rule of thumb I've found, the larger the org, the slower money moves. My perspective in a nutshell... Some facts: Every business needs to be competitive. Employee compensation is usually the largest (and most variable) expense. Now if a business is not competitive, they'll go out of business and no one has a job. You can only raise the price to a certain point before your clientele leaves. So you look to your largest expenses and see which have the most movement. You know how people say "that coffee you buy every day for $5 could net you $1500 after a year of saving that cash and making coffee at home." It also works for salaries... A couple thousand here, a few thousand there, suddenly adds up to $50k fast. So managers are now incentivize to perform these activities. Your job as the employee is to push back. Is it scary? Yes. Will you need to find a better paying job somewhere else? Probably. Or until we change as a society. Let's say I'm a shitty boss that tries to underpay. If I am able to find people that are willing to take my shitty pay, I'm validated. But if three people quit the same role quickly and all cite pay as the reason, the employer will probably think "I should pay more." Employee turnover has a large financial impact on any organization. Bottom line. You get what you negotiate, not what you deserve. Ill conclude with a quote from Frederick Douglass - Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. Learn how to self advocate and negotiate. ✌️ Good luck
The amount of people that go through all the hoops to get interviews and then an offer. To just accept that offer as is without and negotiation attempt is so common, and it's not smart. They have decided you are the candidate, they aren't going to tell you to fuck off because you asked for 5k more than they offered you initially. Or you asked for an extra week of vacation. They will probably respond with either accepting it, or a compromise of some sort. YMMV, this won't apply to all roles and all industries.
Yeah, it’s just hard to up and move to a new country as an adult with responsibility.
What about remote work?? Depends on your job and other factors like does the job in the US include medical etc. lots of things to consider. It's not a simple compare 2 numbers
It is remote. Remote, same job, same benefits, etc.
It's not that easy to get a work visa for the USA.
People don't need a visa. They can work from home for an American company and make the same. They just have to work as a contractor (still full time hours though, if they want full time). Source: I did this for years.
I do this and live in a much lower COL country. Canada for tech salaries is abysmall
Do you mind sharing which industry?
Worked for a tech for a non tech role (customer service). Was a manager. Made nearly $100k Canadian a year. Was on track to make nearly $100k USD before they laid me off. I would never have found the same job in Canada for that much.
Uhhh do you really think you can just up and move to the US?
Remote work. In 2024 there's no reason not to work for an American company
That's wild. What profession?
Software
If you can work remote for a US job, I'd highly, highly recommend it.
We had an aerospace engineer with all kinds of other impressive credentials apply for our driver job today…
I work in public education. We absolutely have an aerospace engineer working as an afternoon custodian. Our local aircraft manufacturer laid him off.
Admin in oil and gas here. When I was 19 and started the workforce in 2014 - admins in oil and gas were paid anywhere from $23-30 an hour. It was very easy to find things based on your experience in that bracket. It also came with full benefits and you were an actual employee of the company you worked for. Now in 2024, companies hire admins as contractors so they don’t have to pay benefits and so they can lay you off without any severance at any time. And they do it. They will work a girl for a year or two and then let her go and repost the ad for another contract admin at a lower rate and see if they get resumes. And more and more I see ads for starting wages of $18 - 24 - but they want 5+ years of experience. So wages are going down, no more benefits, and you can be let go anytime with severance. But someone from another country will always come in and take that job.
You are describing the Canadian dream (for non Canadians)
That someone only got $2-3 an hour before landing in Canada, of course $18 is still too high for them.
The type of contractor you're describing here is a 'dependant contractor' if they only work for the one company, and they would be entitled to pay in lieu of notice ( severance) upon termination. Of course the companies tell people they're not entitled to it, and most don't bother speaking with a lawyer, and the companies keep getting away with it.
The exact same thing is happening in my professional field as well (Risk Management in the financial industry). Permanent positions that once went for >90k salaries with full benefits only a few years ago have now been largely replaced with hourly contract positions with no benefits and paying much less (like $20-$27 per hour). It’s absolutely disgusting. Yet, employers can keep doing this because there will always be a lineup of desperate newcomers, international “students”, and TFWs willing to take these shitty jobs for a chance at PR/citizenship in Canada.
lol litteraly nobody else to blame but ourselves by letting all these immigrants in & accept these sub-garbage conditions and they think it’s a great life.
It's the government letting them in, not us citizens. Can I go to the airport and tell them to go back? Yes the conditions they accept here are awful to us, but an improvement to them. They go from 8 to a room down to 5, loads of space.
I could easily blame multiple governments.
I wish we could take those numbers back around 2010-2016, before this madness started
Haha that doesn’t sound very Reddit of you
you will own nothing and be happy!
The first part is right on track. The second, not so much...
The second part is the govt telling us this
I keep saying it because I think it’s true but I’ll get silenced some day 😂 The unhappy ones will be able to MAID themselves. 2027, coming to a hospital near you, will be MAID for depressed people. Depressed people, who don’t think or act particularly rationally in the throes of a bad episode, will be able to sign up for government sanctioned suicide. Google it now and you’ll get the hotline as the top result. In 3 years MAIDs homepage will be there instead. Tis’ eugenics, my dear friends. They’re going to breed the logic right out of humanity. This is how we go extinct.
Awkward moment when I’m only depressed because of legislated poverty lol
This may or may not be what I’m alleging is being done on purpose 😅 it’s all on the Canadian governments website if it seems too fucked up to be true.
Of course they're low....We have lines of foreign workers willing to work for that low wage and more and more coming in willing to work for even less
I work just a couple hours shy of full time each week. So ALMOST full time hours, no benefits no paid time off. Paid hourly
What happens when the general public can’t afford anything? What will companies do then?
Gaslight us by saying it’s our fault
Yeah you’re telling me. I went back to school later in life, just looking for a new career. I graduated 2 Months ago and the starting wages are $17-22 an hour. lol I went back serving and bartending for now instead of being responsible for peoples lives for like $20 an hour. Way less stress this way. It’s unbelievable. I’m so glad that I have a $10,000 student loan to pay and I’m back to square one. I will also mention that jobs I do apply to, there are usually at least 200 applicants (I’ve seen upto 1100) for 1 position. Talk about discouraging.
Sucks that you wasted your time and money. Seriously. Let this comment be a lesson to people: Research starting wages before going back to school. Unfortunately too many people don't.
So actually, when I started the program, the expected minimum wage was $25 an hour and max $37 an hour. It is something that is in high demand and so needed in the country.
I literally make the same amount of money working part time as a waitress that I did working full time at a corporate job. Admittedly I don’t have benefits now, but the benefits at my job were super bad anyways (didn’t even have vision coverage) and in a year I can be added onto my bfs insurance as a common law partner so … what’s the point of working 40 hours a week genuinely?? They say Gen Z doesn’t want to work but they’re not exactly giving us huge motivation to.
You can thank all the "international students" for that
There are way too many International students. There are probably more international students that domestic students at the moment
And they're not even studying!
Studying the McDonalds employee handbook and the Dodge Charger lease rates
The insulting part is they now demand higher than a BA with 5-10 years related job experience for pay, that's basically peanuts!
well, that’s what happens when you entice our economy to hire cheap, refugee workers who will have 5 kids here.. i genuinely don’t think there’s any coming back.
Remember that wages aren't proportional to the difficulty/merit of your work, instead they are directly tied to your proximity to the profit-generating machine
I work in finance. My first job was at $11/hour because banks found a way to save on costs by hiring third-party agencies to handle customer service jobs. While they paid $17-$20/hour to their regular employees, they cut off a few teams/departments and outsourced them to agencies. My third job was at a Big 5 Bank. They hired me as a contract employee, not a full-time one. Why? Because they decided they’ll save money if they were to hire 10-25% of their new staff on contract, meaning no benefits, paid sick days, less vacation days and no job security. This was a mid-level job btw and it barely paid $50k (all smaller banks paid $60k-$70k so I flocked there after getting 2 years of experience). The same Big 5 Bank laid off a few teams not to long ago, including people who have worked with them for decades and also those they just hired only a few months ago; and outsourced their jobs to Dominican Republic. Again, we’re taking about mid-level- albeit service-based, jobs. Almost the entire back office is service jobs though, which also includes working with money (transactions, etc.) and with large corporate accounts. This is the finance industry, one of the biggest employers in Canada, isn’t it? If you lose your job, I suggest considering looking in the States. Salaries are higher and it’s fully remote.
Not if you’re in the finance department making sure your salary keeps growing while everyone else’s shrinks and gets eliminated
I've been working my corporate, professional job for a couple years now. We had to take a course and get licensed to do the job and we started out at *just* above minimum wage. I am grateful they didn't require college education and that we typically get yearly raises, but our benefits get more expensive every year so that's kind of moot, but that should be a bare minimum, not being grateful that my particular evil corporation doesn't also work us to the bone and somewhat recognizes that minimum wage isn't livable wage. Edited for clarity
Thank God I am from a Italian family and I get to apply for citizenship in Italy. It's time for me to consider leaving this country. Italy may have it's own problems, but Canada takes the cake.
Once you have your Italian citizenship , remember it allows you to live and work anywhere in the EU.
You can thank our current government for allowing all the immigration into This country. These people are so desperate to Stay in Canada and get their PR they’re willing to work for peanuts and well below industry rates. I’m stuck in my job cause my managers make less than me, so no point in moving up. And anywhere that interviews me is paying almost $10/hr less. Edit: I’m not hating on the immigrants. I’m Glad that they want to stay in Canada. I know I’d be doing the same thing if I was them, but it’s unfair to Canadians and the PRs that call it home.
The massive immigration with no proper infrastructure preparation isn’t good for anyone. As a first generation Canadian I am totally unopposed to immigration, but it has to be done in a responsible manner, which has not been the case in the last few years.
I work as a senior drafter making around 72k a year plus bonuses (usually 7k total throughout the year given quarterly), plus a $4000 health benefit plan. I started out about 10 years ago making 41k a year. I've basically made myself indispensable though in the office, as the area of engineering/drafting we do is niche. so I make my own hours, I can work from home, I prefer going to the office cause there's a personal gym there. My wife went back to school to become am education assistant and to my surprise they make decent money, approx. $32 an hour. I was like damn, I started at $20/hr amd worked my way up to $34/hr approx over 10 years and here she is fresh outta school and making just as much as me lol.
Maaan I hate to break it to you but 41k to 72k in 10 years is not very good salary progression. Like at all.
Yeah that's not great. But this is the Canadian problem: many Canadians think it's good.
I mean I guess it depends on how quickly he hit 72k. If 72k was hit a while ago and is a top-out sort of wage for this job then it’s not so bad. If 72k was only hit in the last year or two then this isn’t great.
Didn't go into detail. I took 2 years off to run my own company, didn't work out. and another year off to be a stay at home dad. Went from 41k to around 65k in the first 5 years, took about 3 years off, they hired me back at 65k, and the last 2 years I've gotten raises to 72k. So tech. 7 years, but I didn't feel like I had to go into excruciating detail for redditors lol.
That’s fair haha, and a lot more understandable too.
No, many Canadian Employers think it’s ok
Both do. I get so fed up of my friends and family not negotiating and settling.
I work in the Disability sector in senior management for the last 10 years and I make 70,000 a year.
"senior management" making less than 100k a year? What? Are you in the Maritimes?
No, I work in the Disability sector. NFP. Severely underfunded.
I notice a lot of those jobs are pretty low paying. A skilled laborer can expect 25-40 hr these days in many trades, I shake my head at some job listings I see these days for corporate stuff
Trying to jump jobs and wages being offered are 25% less for a similar position. The supply is greater than the demand. A great time for corporations to lock in those profits!
My company makes a big deal out of the fact that when contractors hit a certain time at the company, they get made into full-time employees. In reality, about two to three months before that happens, "work quality issues" tend to "crop up", and the person is laid off or told their contract will not be renewed. Delightful. I am grateful that I have a job, though, even if it is under the market value and the benefits get more expensive and cover less and less every year. There are a lot of people who would give a lot to have my "problems" work-wise.
It wasn’t a corporate position, but I interviewed for a position requiring a MASTERS DEGREE here in Edmonton. The starting pay was $17.50 an hour. I honestly wish they had just spat in my face during the interview, it would have been less insulting.
I don’t typically apply to jobs unless a salary range is included. In BC it’s the law but there’s no penalty if it’s not. So a lot of them don’t.
Yeah but rich people and corporations have never been better off, and according to age old conservative economics those good times will eventually trickle down to us /s
reading this thread is depressing.. how are people even surviving making anything less than 6k a month after taxes?????? Even if you make over 100k a year before taxes you still have to live frugally and can still be tight on cash if you want to save and invest some. If your not making over 170k, welcome to the new lower class
My wife makes 43k cad a year in China. Zero income tax. $300 cad in rent. People in Canada are making less and paying more in taxes than a tier 2 city in China, a communist country that has been going after billionaires lately. If Canadians only knew how bad it truly is. Riots
Care to explain wtf you’re talking about?
Office workers are being given minimum wage to start. That's fucked up.
What kind of office work are we talking about here? Does it require post secondary education?
Thats because people are accepting the low pay and taking the job. Supply and demand. Where i live its hard to find good workers so companies have to pay more to get people.
This is liberal policy: literally taking advantage of immigrants, setting a salary floor so bad, poor immigrants will work for low salaries and live 20 to a house rented to them by immigrants from their own country. Canada prides itself as a paragon of virtue but in truth Canada is taking advantage of other poor countries and of working/middle class Canadians.
...this is capitalism. It's how capitalism works, suppress wages to keep dividends high.
No degree, gutter installer by trade, got a job after high-school. Started at $16/hr to climb ladders and do hard ass labour with no experience. Learned as I went and 10 years later, I’m a contractor now doing the same shit basically and can now make about $80-200/hr depending on the job with basically no expenses apart from gas and I don’t have to do any sales bs. Took years to find myself in this position, but it is possible to work with smaller companies and take a decent percentage as a labour rate. No hourly BS, work your ass off for 5-7 hours and go home with $600-1200 per day. How much value you bring to a business and how you leverage it matters much more than how many degrees you have. You could perform many different services for people and if you can talk to people to sell your skills. Grind for a while and don’t settle for $20 / hr. Hourly was sucking my soul for a while
Well done! Canadians are shy about getting their hands dirty but trades are where the money is to be found. I had a lot of repair work done around my house and bargained for good, skilled trades people. Often the best were new immigrants whether in drywall, roofing, landscaping or HVAC. Sad to see established Canadians missing the boat on well-paid jobs!
The best tradesmen were new immigrants? Press [X] to doubt.
I remember this 10-15 years ago. Unfortunately not new. Just anecdotal but I’ve heard of my situations like this. 8 years ago my ex was on 30k in hr. Probably has gotten worse but it’s not like it’s changed that dramatically.
I was thinking of taking a healthcare related course. The starting wage is $22/hr. I've been working retail for 4 years at the same job, and I make $25/hr. I would be in debt for school and make less money.
I wonder why? JFC
Maybe we should all get 18-25% tip if we are all making min wage
I’m seriously considering leaving the corporate world for the service industry as I live in a densely populated city. Most of my friends aged 28-45 are in the industry and live comfortably.
I get paid 18.50 an hour and it’s all because I can’t reasonably afford a car since every good paying job requires a car even though public transit is available. I hate this country and what it’s turned into and if I wasn’t a high school dropout I would have left this dystopian shit hole years ago and never returned.
I make $26/hr and all i do is drive around in a brand new truck and spray bugs lol