B.C. minimum wage up to $16.75 in June

The province is bumping up the minimum wage by more than a dollar per hour in June.

B.C.'s lowest paid workers currently get $15.65 per hour, but that will soon go up to $16.75. That's an increase of more than 50% since 2015 after several annual raises.

The provincial government has been tying its minimum wage increases to inflation rates since then, taking it from one of the lowest paid provinces to the highest, according to a news release.

The raise will affect 150,000 workers in the province who earn less than $16.75 per hour, with many in the grocery, food service and retail industries.

When the province began tying its minimum wage increases to the average annual inflation rate in 2015, B.C.'s lowest paid workers were earning $10.45 per hour.

The province added that along with the hourly wage increase, the piece rate for 15 hand-harvested crops will also increase by 6.9% on Jan. 1, 2024.

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