Translation of "Tendance des salaires " (French → English) :

The report's analysis of minimum wages shows that countries with higher minimum wages have not priced the low skilled out of a job and on the contrary tend to have higher employment rates for them.

A similar conclusion that minimum wages tend to affect only young workers (under the age of 24) was also reached by the Interdepartmental Committee Concerning the Review of the Criteria to Determine the Minimum Wage.

As young people reach an age at which they can leave formal education or training and go into paid employment, which (with tightening labour markets) becomes an increasing trend, other forms of incentive have to be available to counter-balance that of the pay packet.

In analysing the latest employment trends, within the general framework of economic recovery, low inflation (2.5%) and moderate wage developments which characterised 1996, the Report highlights a modest increase in employment, confirming the long-term trend towards part-time working (though full-time jobs increased for the first time since 1990 almost half the jobs created in 1996 were part-time, and 17% of all employees now work part-time), and the persistence of stubbornly high unemployment rates (10,8% in mid-1997), particularly as regards women (12.7% against 9.4% for men), young people (over 20%) and people with disabilities, whose ...[+++]employment rate, at just 44%, is 17% below the overall employment rate.

15. A number of requirements must be taken into account in the ongoing reexamination of taxation and assistance systems with the aim of removing possible obstacles to creating or seeking jobs: - the tendency in past years to increase taxation for those in work, particularly the low-paid, must be stopped; - the balance between the taxation and assistance systems must provide an incentive to create or seek employment, avoiding negative effects such as the unemployment trap or the trapping of certain workers in low-paid jobs; - the mai ...[+++]n tasks of the European social protection systems, and the high level of protection they provide, must be preserved.

It strikes me that if you are looking at an average across the Ottawa region, for example, the unionized contractors' wages for their employees tend to be higher.