Minimum Wage increase in New Brunswick

Following conversations with senior officials with the Government of New Brunswick, RCC can advise that this week, the government will announce multiple, special increases to the province’s minimum wage. 

Details were not provided but government officials hinted that over the next year, the province wants to ‘catch up’ to the rest of Atlantic Canada regarding its minimum wage.  This is not a surprise as currently, New Brunswick has the lowest minimum wage in the country at $11.75 per hour.  Meanwhile, the past few years has seen the other Atlantic Provinces make special adjustments to their base wage, which involved larger increased in both April and October of a calendar year.  Governments took these actions  in order to remain competitive with the rest of Canada. 

New Brunswick’s regulation mandates that minimum wage is to be adjusted on April 1^st of each year by the change in CPI but special increases are allowed.  Given the New Brunswick government’s hint that it wants to harmonize with Atlantic processes to catch up on its minimum wage; and given that PEI has already announced that its wage will move to $13.70 on April 1, 2022, RCC can surmise that New Brunswick’s announcement will likely involve an increase on April 1, 2022 and another on October 1, 2022 that will total $2.00 approximately.  If RCC is correct in its assumption, New Brunswick’s base wage will move to $13.75 by October, 1, 2022.  See RCC website for minimum wage by province.  The government committed that following the special increases, it will return to its mandated approach of adjusting minimum wage annually by the change in CPI for the previous year.