The chief executive officer where you work may have earned your entire annual salary by lunch today.
That’s the conclusion of a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, which says that Canada’s 100 highest paid chief executive officers earned 197 times more than the average Canadian in 2017 (the most recent year where data was available).
This means that before lunch on the second work day of the year, the highest paid CEOs in the country had already earned the average Canadian salary of $50,759. The report notes that Canada’s top CEOs made an average of $10 million in 2017.
"Despite what appears to be a tight labour market, markedly higher wages haven’t materialized for the average worker," Senior Economist David Macdonald said in a press release issued by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. "This report serves as a reminder that immense wealth continues to circulate through the economy—it’s just not making its way into the hands of the average worker."
An additional report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that there still exists a significant gender pay gap among Canadian executives, with women making 68 cents for every dollar earned by their male colleagues. That’s about $950,000 less in pay a year, the report states.
The report found a number of reasons for the gender pay gap, including that women often receive lower bonuses than men, fewer women are in top managerial positions, and the fact that companies with more female executives tend to be smaller in size and pay lower salaries.
