“This allows businesses the opportunity to hire students, and I believe, introduces a fair wage for people that have been working for them for a longer period of time that may have some education or skills already behind them.”
The Bonnyville and District Chamber of Commerce stands behind the province’s decision to create a student wage, said executive director Serina Parsons.
The Government of Alberta announced the creation of Bill 2, also known as the Open for Business Act, which addresses general holiday pay and banked overtime rules. Last week, they also introduced a new $13 per hour youth minimum wage.
The hourly wage, if passed, would take effect June 26 and will apply to youth aged 13 to 17-years-old.
Minimum wage was increased to $15 per hour in October 2018, something Parsons believes caused “a real discrepancy” between employees with prior skills and education in their field making the same hourly wage as a high school student working in the customer service industry.
“Because of that, a lot of businesses then felt the need to try and increase wages for the remainder of their employees. It wasn’t just those entering the workforce. There’s a discrepancy between skilled labour and new labour,” expressed Parsons.
According to the provincial government, nearly 11 per cent of Albertans aged 15 to 24 are unemployed.
Julie Kissel, owner of Glendon Motorsports, explained how the new wage will encourage businesses to hire more students.
”I’m happy to see that the youth wages will be reduced. I really see this as a huge positive to encourage employers to hire more youth, who can really benefit from the work experience,” she expressed. “The public doesn’t realize how expensive it is to train someone without work experience, especially youth with limited life experience. The extra time it takes to complete tasks, in addition to the training time for even the simplest of jobs. In my opinion, in many instances they’re more costly than just simply paying an experienced employee quite a bit more. So this change in minimum wage should definitely increase first-time job opportunities for youth.”
Parsons agreed.
“How often do we hear ‘I need experience to get a job, but I can’t get a job without experience?’ That’s something we hear over and over again from students just entering the workforce. I believe this will allow for a greater opportunity for them.”
The introduction of the student wage won’t hinder the employment for those trained in their field, Parsons believes.
The bill also re-establishes previous general holiday pay and banked overtime rules, which were changed by the previous Alberta NDP government, requiring employers to provide holiday pay regardless of whether their business was open that day or not.
”I’m quite thrilled with Premier Jason Kenney’s Bill 2 and that the new government is addressing these issues so quickly. The prior government’s changes to the Employment Standards were excessive and unnecessarily added financial and administrative burden to the business owners,” expressed Kissel.
She continued, “I’m thrilled the new changes will bring back the old overtime agreements, where employees can bank their time with one hour worked for one hour of paid time off. (It’s a) simple system and much more flexible for employees and employers both.”
Currently, employers are required to pay their staff one and a half of their wage for overtime.
Parsons noted that while the changes to overtime might not be exactly what employees want to “see or hear,” it could actually work in their favour.
“There are benefits to employees with this new overtime as well, because a lot of small business and employers in the oil field, have policy where they won’t allow overtime hours. That’s hindering because of how it still has to payout,” she explained. “This way, there may be more opportunity for employees to make money. It’s not just a cut. Some employers may actually allow overtime as an option, whereas they wouldn’t in the past.”
The bill, if passed, would also restore a mandatory secret ballot for all union certification votes.
While most changes will take effect Sept. 1 in order to allow employers a period of adjustment, the youth minimum wage would start June 26.
In a press release Kenney said, “Our government ran on a promise to get Albertans, especially young people, back to work. The previous government’s changes to employment rules went too far, too fast. With Bill 2 and the youth minimum wage, we’re restoring fairness and balance to the workplace and getting ‘Help Wanted’ signs back in the windows of Alberta businesses.”
