Labourers in food and beverage processing salary in Canada
$39,520CAD/YR
Labourers in food and beverage processing in Canada earns a median of $39,520 a year, about $20.00 an hour.
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What $39,520 is actually worth
Move this wage out of Canada and it converts to $28,018. Spend it where it was earned and it buys what $31,353 buys in the United States. Those are two answers to two different questions, and the distance between them is the thing worth reading — here it is a factor of 1.12.
At the exchange rate At local prices The disagreement
The hollow marker is the exchange-rate reading: what the money is worth if it leaves. The solid marker is the purchasing-power reading: what it is worth if it stays. The hatched span between them is the disagreement, and it is what every single-country salary site leaves out.
SOURCE·European Central Bank reference rates (via Frankfurter) and World Bank PPP conversion factor PA.NUS.PRVT.PP·FX 2026-07-29·REVIEWED PPP 2025
How Canada arrived at this figure, and what it is not
- Employment and Social Development Canada publishes Job Bank wage data for the reference period 2025. We take the occupation row as released and change nothing in it.
- 2021 Census wage distributions by NOC and economic region
- Where the agency publishes a distribution we carry the whole distribution, because a single average throws away the part of the answer people are actually asking about.
- The wage is then read twice: converted at the European Central Bank reference rate for 2026-07-29, and divided by the World Bank purchasing-power conversion factor for CAN. Both readings are printed; neither is presented as the answer.
- Countries measure pay differently. A tax return, an employer payroll survey, a PAYE sample and a household survey are four different instruments, and gaps of a few per cent between countries are the instruments, not the wages.
converted = CAD 39,520 / FX(CAD->USD) adjusted = CAD 39,520 / PPP(CAN) disagreement = adjusted / converted
Where it pays more in Canada
Median pay for this occupation by area, highest-employing first.
| Area | Median | vs national |
|---|---|---|
| Wood Buffalo--Cold Lake | $47,523 | +20% |
| Lethbridge--Medicine Hat | $46,436 | +18% |
| Chaudière-Appalaches | $46,041 | +17% |
| Centre-du-Québec | $45,448 | +15% |
| Alberta | $45,448 | +15% |
| Camrose--Drumheller | $45,448 | +15% |
| Calgary | $45,448 | +15% |
| Montérégie | $41,496 | +5% |
| Lanaudière | $41,496 | +5% |
| Saskatchewan | $41,496 | +5% |
| Yorkton--Melville | $41,496 | +5% |
| Prince Albert | $41,496 | +5% |
| Thompson--Okanagan | $41,496 | +5% |
| Edmonton | $41,298 | +4% |
| Red Deer | $40,943 | +4% |
| Mauricie | $40,508 | +3% |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $40,291 | +2% |
| Avalon Peninsula | $40,291 | +2% |
| Regina--Moose Mountain | $39,876 | +1% |
| Estrie | $39,777 | +1% |
| North Shore | $39,737 | +1% |
| Annapolis Valley | $39,698 | +0% |
| Quebec | $39,619 | +0% |
| Prince Edward Island | $39,520 | +0% |
| Nova Scotia | $39,520 | +0% |
Regional figures come from the same release as the national one. Where an area is missing, the source suppressed it for sample-size reasons rather than reporting an unreliable estimate.
Every figure this page rests on
| Reading | CAD | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Median | $39,520 | The middle earner |
| Mean | $41,358 | Pulled up by top earners |
| 25th percentile | $34,817 | — |
| 75th percentile | $45,448 | — |
| Hourly | $20.00 | Median at 38 hrs/week |
Employment and Social Development Canada · 2025
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What people ask next
- How much does labourers in food and beverage processing earn in Canada?
- The median is $39,520 a year, about $20.00 an hour, according to Employment and Social Development Canada, Job Bank wage data 2025.
- Is that figure before or after tax?
- Before. Every figure on this page is gross pay as the statistics agency published it — income tax, social contributions and any deductions come off afterwards, and they differ enough between countries that we do not model them.
- Why is the US-dollar figure different depending on where I read it?
- Because there are two of them. $39,520 converts to $28,018 at the exchange rate on 2026-07-29, and buys what $31,353 buys in the United States once Canada's price level is accounted for. The first answers "what could I wire abroad", the second answers "how well does someone live on this".
Related occupations in Canada
- Labourers in chemical products processing and utilities $49,400
- Labourers in fish and seafood processing $35,568
- Labourers in metal fabrication $47,424
- Labourers in mineral and metal processing $50,289
- Labourers in rubber and plastic products manufacturing $40,409
- Labourers in textile processing and cutting $36,556
- Labourers in wood, pulp and paper processing $47,681
- Other labourers in processing, manufacturing and utilities $39,520
