AI Analysis: Average hourly earnings (including overtime) for salaried employees, by industry, monthly, unadjusted for seasonality

Executive Summary

Average hourly earnings for Canadian salaried employees grew 111% over 25 years, rising from $23.13/hr in January 2001 to $48.81/hr in February 2026, with notable acceleration post-2020 driven by inflation and tight labour markets. Across 423 NAICS industry categories, earnings vary dramatically — from a low of $8.58/hr in Performing Arts to a high of $127.50/hr in General Medical and Surgical Hospitals — with a long-run mean of $31.04/hr and a slight right skew reflecting high-earning outlier sectors. Goods-producing industries consistently outpaced service-producing industries in hourly wages throughout the entire period.

Key Findings

• Industrial Aggregate average hourly earnings grew 111% over 25 years, from $23.13/hr in January 2001 to $48.81/hr in February 2026, with the most pronounced acceleration occurring after 2020.
• The dataset spans 106,474 data points across 423 NAICS industry categories, with a mean hourly wage of $31.04 and a median of $29.88, indicating a right-skewed distribution pulled upward by high-earning sectors.
• Earnings range widely from $8.58/hr (Performing Arts Companies, January 2002) to $127.50/hr (General Medical and Surgical Hospitals, February 2022), a spread of nearly $119/hr across industries.
• The middle 50% of hourly earnings fall between $24.36 and $36.46/hr (IQR of $12.10), while 79 outliers exceed the $72.76 upper threshold, with healthcare industries dominating the high-outlier list.
• Goods-producing industries consistently earned more per hour than service-producing industries across the entire 25-year period, a persistent structural wage gap visible throughout the dataset.
• The correlation between industry code (COORDINATE) and hourly earnings is negligible at r = -0.04, confirming that meaningful wage differences across sectors are non-linear and group-based rather than sequential.
• The single highest outlier of $127.50/hr recorded in General Medical and Surgical Hospitals in February 2022 is nearly four times the overall dataset mean, highlighting significant post-pandemic wage pressures in the healthcare sector.