Effective October 1, 2024, Ontario’s general minimum wage rate will see a 3.9 per cent increase from $16.55 to $17.20 per hour. The student minimum wage, for those under the age of 18, will see an increase from $15.60 to $16.20 an hour. These increases are based on the Ontario Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of the average changes in prices for consumer goods and services. 

Whether it be a part-time job on campus or an extension of previous co-op terms, many university students work minimum wage jobs throughout their degree to have a source of income and possibly even support themselves financially. However, the increase in wage may not make a substantial impact on a student’s financial situation. “A raise in pay also just means an inflation in the economy… It doesn’t make a real impactful difference,” said Gamsa Lee, a UW student in her masters of health evaluation who is working a part-time minimum wage job in addition to her studies. 

“I think in general, the state of the economy right now also reflects poorly on students because [they] are expected to work minimum wage jobs most of the time. Even in our co-op system we might get higher wages, but realistically it’s not that much in the grand scheme of things,” she said. 

Lee commented on the ways the increase in wages may affect shift scheduling negatively, as some employers are eager to decrease labour costs: “If anything, it gives employers more of a reason to cut down on your hours rather than keep yours as is. Even at my current workplace, they started giving less and less hours the more they realized they had to pay people. Or they would give, for example, one person like me many hours so they wouldn’t have to have multiple people on shift. So it would just be me on shift for like eight hours and some people who would have their entire schedule free would only work once a week.” 

The increasing wage may trigger a shift in the employer’s mindset on how workers are scheduled, even if it may mean slowing down output. Lee continued, “So adding an increase in price would probably make certain employers feel threatened to decrease work hours for certain employers because they don’t want to pay them as much — they don’t want to pay multiple different people, which is confusing because I think in my brain, if you pay multiple people that’s the same thing as just getting them out faster but I don’t know… that was the mindset of my old boss.” 

Additionally, an increasing minimum wage rate leaves the question for other jobs, whether they will undergo an increased wage as well. If not, Lee spoke on the way it can devalue these other jobs: “If the general public has a wage raise, and then there are students that are clearly told that they’ll have a higher pay raise due to their education and what [skills] they have currently, and that the value starts evening itself out… It just feels like no matter how much they raise the value, it doesn’t really make a change other than devaluing other currently existing jobs, which sucks for both sides.” 

Will the increased minimum wage rate result in negative consequences, such as reduced hours and feelings of devaluation for non-minimum wage jobs? In any case, concerns regarding employment are an added stress for many students. “Especially as students [who] have a lot of other things on [their] plate… having to worry about employment on top of it is just not ideal,” Lee said.