Wage Guide Update

Gareth Hedges, YCW Data Team

As we approach a new application season, the YCW data team has been hard at work updating the YCW Wage Guide. The guide was first developed last year when several employers requested guidance after receiving negative feedback about advertised wages on social media. We have updated the guide to include current minimum wage data as well as hourly wage information for the 2020-21 program season.

One of the YCW program goals is to provide quality work experience for emerging museum professionals, one of the ways we can support this is by paying regional and skill appropriate wages to YCW employees. Wage is at the discretion of the employer, but typically YCW wages exceed the local minimum wage.

It is important when determining the wage for your YCW position to consider the rate of inflation every year. Boosting a wage incrementally can be much easier on the budget than having to make a major increase due to lack of applicants.

The YCW Wage Guide provides wage data based on province, as well as a further breakdown for major urban centres. There is also a breakdown provided by job function. The two program streams, YCW in Heritage Organizations (Student Employment) and YCW Building Careers in Heritage (Graduate Internships) have also been considered separately.

Please note that as sample sizes vary, these values are presented as a snapshot of YCW positions for each cycle, and not as a comprehensive study of the field.

By and large, YCW wages increased over 2019-2021. We saw average increases by 3.6% in the YCW-HO stream and by 5.9% in the YCW-BCH stream. Significant increases were seen in Saskatchewan, which is also reflected in the urban centre breakdown. The City of Saskatoon had wage increases of 13% when comparing year over year.

When broken down by job type, YCW-BCH positions in Communications and STEM saw very large increases of 14% and 16% respectively, which suggests these positions are in demand, or perhaps that the talent pool for these positions is limited.

These are just some highlights and points of interest from this year’s update. To review the full YCW Wage Guide, as well as other CMA resources to help you build your YCW application visit: YCW Resources. M

Gareth Hedges is a YCW-BCH program officer and lead of the YCW Data Team. He completed a doctorate in the Humanities at Concordia University.