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November 28, 2025COMPENSATION OF EMPLOYEES, Q3 2025 Quarter-over-quarter (Q3 2025 vs Q2 2025, seasonally adjusted)
Total compensation of employees for all industries increased by 1.5% in Nova Scotia, rising to $8.90 billion in Q3 2025. National employee compensation was up 1.1% in the third quarter of 2025. All provinces recorded quarter over quarter gains in employee compensation with the fastest growth in New Brunswick, followed by Nova Scotia and Québec. The slowest growth over Q2 was in British Columbia.
Year-to-date (Q1-Q3 2025 vs Q1-Q3 2024)
Nova Scotia's employee compensation for all industries was up 4.3% in the first three quarters of 2025 when compared with the same period of 2024. National employee compensation grew 4.1%. All provinces recorded year-to-date gains in employee compensation in the first three quarters of the year, with the fastest gain reported in New Brunswick and Saskatchewan and the slowest in Prince Edward Island.
Year-to-date growth in total wages and salaries by industry show that the strongest contributions to rising payrolls came from professional and personal services, followed by health care/social assistance (which includes daycare). Wage and salary totals were down for agriculture/forestry/fishing, mining/oil/gas, 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
After the notable declines early in the pandemic, employee compensation growth picked up and experienced strong growth from 2021-2023. Over this period, there were some notable spikes in employee compensation monthly results, followed by subsequent corrections. Since the beginning of 2024, monthly results have become less volatile and growth in employee compensation has slowed somewhat.
Year-over-year (September 2025 vs September 2024)
On a year-over-year basis, employee compensation growth was 4.8% in September 2025.
Source: Statistics Canada. Table 36-10-0205-01 Wages, salaries and employers' social contributions (x 1,000)
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