Want service industry workers to go back to work? Try paying them a living wage

A Léger study last year addressed the labour shortage in Quebec and the rest of Canada. We decided to revisit the results, given Quebec’s recent 5.5% minimum wage increase, which is less than the current rate of inflation of 6.7%.

According to the Léger study, 50% of Canadians believed that companies should offer better salaries to entice service industry workers to go back to work. Virtually the same percentage of Canadians (48%) also believed that the best option for companies to deal with employees earning minimum wage is to increase the minimum wage to the level of inflation.

60% of Canadians also acknowledged that they’d recently experienced under-staffing in in-person businesses like restaurants and bars, retail and/or grocery stores

Has the labour shortage affected you personally in the last few months?

Explore all the results of our latest North American Tracker ???? https://t.co/56VbN1UlOs#Leger360 #labourshortage pic.twitter.com/ataVEUDIOf

— Léger (@leger360) October 27, 2021

This article was originally published on Oct. 27, 2021 and updated on May 4, 2022.

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