2025 Delivers Decade-High Wage Growth for Union Members
Unionized workers achieved significant wage gains last year, negotiating the highest annual increases since at least 2016, according to new federal government data.
In the first eight months of 2025, average annual wage increases for unionized workplaces of more than 500 employees reached nearly 4 per cent, a figure that surpassed inflation and was materially higher than gains in the years before the pandemic.
The data, which was recently updated by Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), show that between Jan. 1 and Aug. 31 of last year, the average annual wage increase in settlements was 3.9 per cent across private and public sector unions. In 2023, it was 3.3 per cent, and in 2024, it was 3.4 per cent.
In previous years, wage increases had hovered between 1.5 and 3 per cent, closely tracking inflation.
Unions have been scoring some major wins on wages in recent years, driven by high inflation rates in 2022 and 2023, coupled with greater momentum and cohesion within the labour movement as Canadians struggled with rising costs.
Unions that did not negotiate agreements during the peak years of inflation have been trying to make up for real wage losses of their members, pressing for bigger pay bumps at the bargaining table and even issuing strike notices more frequently.
Approximately 30 per cent of the Canadian work force is unionized, with most unionized workers consisting of federal and provincial government employees. The unionization rate for private sector workers, as of 2023, was 15.5 per cent.
Wage increases for unionized workers in 2025 were driven mostly by gains amongst private sector union employees. The average annual wage increase was 4.2 per cent for this group of workers, and 3.4 per cent for public sector workers, similar to gains made in 2023 and 2024. But average wage increases for private sector workers in the first year of a new collective agreement was 7 per cent, the highest by a large margin compared with previous years.
There were a number of key wins for the labour movement in 2025, notably when 10,000 CUPE flight attendants at Air Canada defied a federal back-to-work order in August and continued striking, resulting in an agreement that, for the first time, saw company flight attendants begin to get paid for the work they do before a plane departs, and after it has landed.
But strike activity as a whole declined significantly in the first 10 months of 2025, compared with 2023 and 2024, ESDC data showed.
There were 193 work stoppages over that span last year, compared to 272 for both 2023 and 2024. There were 90 strikes or lockouts in the private sector, and 103 in the public sector.
The COVID-19 years were accompanied by greater labour unrest, especially among public sector workers.
New strike data on ESDC’s website became publicly available late in 2025, more than three months after it was removed by the ministry with little explanation. Its temporary removal caused problems for labour experts and unions, who were deprived of key information needed for research and to draft policy.
More granular data on union wages and strikes by province is lacking, except in Ontario, which has detailed figures on collective bargaining wage trends and work stoppages.
The Ontario data showed that in 2025, negotiated wage gains among unionized workers remained higher than the prepandemic average, at 3.3 per cent annually. Annual average wage increases peaked at 4 per cent in 2023, fuelled by major wins at the bargaining table for Ontario’s construction unions.
This article was first reported by The Globe and Mail
