Comparing public and private sector compensation in Canada

As federal and many provincial governments continue to struggle with both deficits and finding ways to constrain spending, there is heightened interest in how wages and non-wage benefits (i.e., total compensation) in the public sector compare with those in the private sector. While a lack of non-wage benefits data mean that there is insufficient information to make a definitive comparison of total compensation between the private and public sectors, the data that are available indicate that the public sector enjoys a clear wage premium. There are also strong indications that the public sector has more generous non-wage benefits than the private sector.