Photo credit: CNN
Canada’s top-paid CEOs made over 200 times more than the average worker in 2023.
CBC News reports that a new report has found that the gap between executives and employees narrowed slightly that year, as workers’ wages rose. Corporate profits declined the comedown from high inflation.
The progressive think tank Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives released its annual report which says that in that year, chief executives were paid 210 times more than the average worker. The report’s authors attribute that high to a boost in corporate profits helped by record-setting inflation, and higher bonuses for executives whose compensation is tied to company performance.
David Macdonald, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) and a co-author of the report said the CEO-to-worker pay ratio continues to grow despite recent contraction.
“The long-term trend is pretty clear. In the 1980s, CEOs made about 50 times the average worker. In the 90s, it was 100 times. We’re now, I think, pretty solidly over 200 times.”
Since high inflation constrains purchasing power, Canadian workers began demanding higher compensation to match the rising cost of living. Those demands led to an average weekly wage increase of 6.6 per cent in 2023, including overtime.
However, after-tax corporate profits declined by three per cent in 2023 compared with a high reached the year before, according to Statistics Canada.
The chasm between executive and worker pay sounds “enormous” according to Anne Boilard, a human resources specialist based in Montreal. “But you have to keep in mind that this is the global remuneration package, meaning that it’s not necessarily money in their bank account.”
