Bringing in pay equity in 2024 will cost $620 million a year, with companies given eight years to adjust salaries of underpaid women, says Blacklock’s Reporter..“The Pay Equity Act covers approximately 1.3 million employees,” said a Parliamentary Budget Office report..Affected workers include 435,000 government employees and 823,500 workers at Crown corporations and the federally-regulated private sector likes airports, banks and railways..The cost of $620 million annually from 2025 “includes $544 million in salary increases, $73 million in employment pension and benefit contribution increases and a $4 million increase in employee contributions to the Canada Pension Plan and Employment Insurance,” wrote analysts..The Budget Office in an earlier 2020 report estimated total costs of $1.95 billion over a decade. The labour department put costs at $1.6 billion..Parliament passed the Act in 2018 but has yet to take effect..“We have to look at the bigger picture here,” then-Labour Minister Filomena Tassi told reporters last July 7..“There is no question the scale of work and magnitude of work of what we are undertaking here absolutely takes time. I would love to have seen this corrected overnight, but we must recognize this is complex. Sustainable, long-term change takes time to get it right.”.The Act requires federally-regulated employers with 10 staff or more to first introduce pay equity plans, then survey workplace wage gaps and adjust underpay for women. Equity payments are not retroactive..“Women have participated in Canada’s workforce for many decades now and have been responsible for at least one-third of our country’s economic growth,” said Tassi..“But when it comes to the question of pay and compensation, there was a serious problem that needed to be addressed.”.The size of the wage gap between women and men in Canada has been estimated at 74¢ to 93¢ on the dollar. Statistics Canada in a 2019 report said calculation was difficult since relatively higher pay in male-dominated industries like construction skewed figures, while women overall tended to work fewer hours..“In general the gender gap has narrowed over time,” said the StatsCan report..Analysts added much of the current gap “was unexplained.”
