What happened
ADP Research plans to launch a monthly labour market report in Canada in September, as reported by Talent Canada. It is called ADP Canada Pay Insights. It will track pay growth across the Canadian private sector.
The data comes from anonymized ADP Canada payroll transactions covering approximately 1 million workers. Each month the report will give the national median annual pay level and the year-over-year pay growth rate. It will break results out by firm size, industry, gender, age and province.
The feature that stands out is the matched sample. The report follows the same anonymized workers over 12 months, so it can compare job-stayers (same employer a year ago) with job-changers (those who switched employers in the past year). ADP says it will be free. The first release is set for Sept. 3, and a schedule of later releases will be posted on a dedicated page in September.
Why it matters if you are hiring
Most wage data employers use is survey-based and lags. This is built on actual payroll, so it should show faster what the market is paying right now.
The stayer versus changer split is the useful part. If job-changers see noticeably bigger raises than stayers, your own people are being offered more elsewhere, and your retention risk is higher than your internal pay review suggests. If the gap is small, you have more room on offer levels for new hires.
The breakouts by province, industry and firm size matter for hiring managers, controllers and plant managers setting budgets. A national figure rarely matches what you pay for a maintenance technician in Ontario or an accountant in Alberta. The report does not yet say how finely roles will be cut, so treat it as a benchmark, not a pay scale.
The first numbers have not been published, so there is nothing to act on yet except preparing to use them.
One thing to do this week
Pull your current pay for your 10 hardest-to-fill roles and record the last raise given to people who stayed versus the pay offered to people you hired in the past 12 months. Have that sheet ready before Sept. 3 so you can set it against ADP's first release.
Traverse Staffing helps Canadian employers find and hire operations, finance, sales, manufacturing and technical people, and we can help you check offers against what the market is paying.