While the political controversy over raising Ontario’s minimum wage to $15 per hour continues, a smaller increase will come into effect next week.
As of Oct. 1, the minimum wage will increase from $11.40 per hour to $11.60.
People who serve alcohol will see their minimum hourly wage increase by the same 20 cents per hour, to $10.10 per hour, while students under the age of 18 will see their minimum wage increased from $10.70 per hour to $10.90 per hour.
Two bigger increases to the minimum wage are also on the books – to $14 per hour on Jan. 1, 2018, and to $15 per hour on Jan. 1, 2019.
Those increases have drawn the ire of the province’s business community, which has argued that they represent too severe of a financial hit for some businesses to weather.
Ontario’s financial accountability officer has estimated that the increases could result in more than 50,000 jobs being lost across the province, with teenagers and young adults the most likely to be affected.
The province has defended the larger increases as a way to address issues around poverty and precarious work.
Following 2019, minimum wage increases are expected to return to being based on the rate of inflation, as they have been for the past several years.
