Quebec civil servants pay less than their colleagues

Calculating gross compensation takes into account salaries, benefits, and hours at work (normal hours worked minus non-working hours payments), the ISQ specifies.

when we compare it to All other Quebec employees working in companies and organizations with 200 or more employeesTotal compensation for Quebec government employees is 9.4% behind in 2021.

While this gap has remained fairly stable since 2020, ISQ researchers note that the salary situation for Quebec’s civil servants is poor between 2012 and 2021.

The same results emerge from comparing employees in the administration of Quebec with those in the private sector.ISQ notes in its report entitled workers compensation Comparative situation and evolution 2021 (A new window).

Over the past decade, the gap in the gross salary of Quebec’s civil servants with those in companies and organizations with 200 or more employees has decreased from 6.3% in 2012 to 9.4% in 2021.

For private sector employees, the gap decreased from +3.3% in 2012 to -1.6% in 2021. Over the past ten years, the private sector has been able to catch up and even exceed the gross salary offered to civil servants in Quebec.

Finally, in 2012 the salaries of employees in other public administrations (cities, federal, universities, etc.) were 26.2% higher than those of civil servants in Quebec, while today it is 27.5%.

If we only take into account the salary…

In light of the data referenced, researchers from the Institute of Statistics also found that even taking into account only salary – without taking into account other recoverable benefits – employees of the Quebec administration are still underpaid.

By analyzing only the salary, we see that the Quebec administration has an average salary lower than all other Quebec employees (-17.6%) and the private sector (-14.9%) in 2021.Can we read the ISQ report.

« Compared to employees in other public sectors, workers in the administration of Quebec lag by 24.5% in 2021. »

To illustrate the difference between the observed differences between salary and gross salary, ISQ states that they are attributable to the fact that civil servants in Quebec have 35.8-hour workweeks, while other Quebec workers work an average of 37.4 hours per week.

Additionally, ISQ asserts, vacations (paid out of working hours) represent more expenses for the administration of Quebec (15.7% of salary) than for employers for other Quebec employees (14.6%) and for employers. from the private sector (13.2%)).

Nothing to improve the labor shortage

The publication of this data prompted the union organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Quebec government employees to respond.

In the Public Employment and Paralegal Union of Quebec (SFPQ), it is estimated that maintaining these wage gaps can only add to the labor shortage already affecting Quebec’s public service.

According to the Central Labor Union, which has negotiated for two years with the Quebec government to renew the collective agreements of its 40,000 members, technical employees are 19.6% behind compared to other employees and office employees are 21% behind. , 7%. The gap between workers was 36.4%, according to a union statement.

« Quebec government employees, such as office workers, inspectors, and technicians, to name a few, are far from privileged as some claim. »

The Minister in charge of Government Administration and the Chair of the Treasury Board, Sonia Leibel, must quickly raise the bar at the negotiating table, because the absence of attractive conditions increases labor shortages and inevitably affects the proper functioning of services provided to the population, explains the SFPQ’s general president, Christian Daigle.