Nobody in Fort McMurray will be surprised to hear that oil and gas workers make the most money in Canada.
But new figures from Stats Canada show exactly how much more – almost five times more than workers in the accomodation and food business, for example.
The agency says your average oil and gas worker gets just under 1,900 dollars a week before taxes – the provincial average is just above 1,000 a week.
ATB Financial economist Todd Hirsch says those workers, in the oil sands especially, deserve every penny.
“Oftentimes they’re working in very very challenging environments,” he said. “Working outside in Fort McMurray in the middle of January? I don’t know – I think they’re worth nineteen hundred dollars a week!”
Hirsch says there are other factors that put energy paycheques further over the top.
“Health benefits, recreation benefits, those kinds of things,” he said. “The numbers that Stats Canada provided this morning are really just on weekly earnings – what the paycheque is before taxes, too, and that’s also important.”
After energy, it’s utilities, science and technology, and construction that have the next biggest paycheques.
Published July 27, 2012
