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May 30, 2025COMPENSATION OF EMPLOYEES, Q1 2025 Quarter-over-quarter (Q1 2025 vs Q4 2024, seasonally adjusted)
Total compensation of employees for all industries increased by 0.7% in Nova Scotia, rising to $8.76 billion in Q1 2025. National employee compensation was up 0.8% in the first quarter of 2025. All provinces recorded quarter over quarter gains in employee compensation with the fastest growth in Saskatchewan, and the slowest in Prince Edward Island.
Year-over-year (Q1 2025 vs Q1 2024)
Nova Scotia's employee compensation for all industries was up 5.0% in Q1 2025 when compared with the same quarter of 2024. National employee compensation grew 5.4%. All provinces recorded year-over-year gains in employee compensation in Q1, with the fastest gain reported in Saskatchewan and the slowest in Newfoundland and Labrador.
Year-over-year growth in total wages and salaries by industry show that the strongest contributions to rising payrolls came from the health care/social assistance (which includes daycare) industries, followed by professional and personal services industries. Wage and salary totals were down for mining/oil/gas, agriculture/forestry/fishing, and wholesale/retail industries.
In percentage terms, transportation and information/cultural services reported the fastest gains in Nova Scotia over this period.
Note that changes in employee compensation reflect changes in wages and salaries as well as changes in contributions to social insurance. Changes in wages and salaries include the effects of changing numbers of employees, changing hours worked and wage rates as well as effects from differences in pay period from one year to the next.
Trends
In each of June 2022 and June 2023, there were spikes in employee compensation, followed by corrections. In 2024, there were notable spikes in compensation in January (without a correction the following month) and May (with a subsequent decline in June). Nova Scotia experienced a decline in employee compensation in December of 2024, with a similar decline experienced in December of 2023.
Year-over-year (March 2025 vs March 2024)
On a year-over-year basis, employee compensation growth has slowed to 3.9% in March 2025.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 36-10-0205-01 Wages, salaries and employers' social contributions (x 1,000)
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