Social workers salary in Canada
$75,997CAD/YR
Social workers in Canada earn a median of $75,997 a year, about $38.46 an hour.
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What $75,997 is actually worth
Move this wage out of Canada and it converts to $53,879. Spend it where it was earned and it buys what $60,292 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 75,997 / FX(CAD->USD) adjusted = CAD 75,997 / 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Nunavut | $127,590 | +68% |
| Northwest Territories | $112,158 | +48% |
| Yukon Territory | $94,235 | +24% |
| Wood Buffalo--Cold Lake | $87,438 | +15% |
| North Coast | $86,746 | +14% |
| Kitchener--Waterloo--Barrie | $86,292 | +14% |
| Kootenay | $83,130 | +9% |
| South Coast--Burin Peninsula | $82,992 | +9% |
| Notre Dame--Central Bonavista Bay | $82,992 | +9% |
| Campbellton--Miramichi | $82,992 | +9% |
| Kingston--Pembroke | $82,972 | +9% |
| Moncton--Richibucto | $82,538 | +9% |
| London | $82,518 | +9% |
| Camrose--Drumheller | $82,458 | +9% |
| Northeast | $82,083 | +8% |
| Stratford--Bruce Peninsula | $82,044 | +8% |
| Hamilton--Niagara Peninsula | $81,431 | +7% |
| Outaouais | $81,075 | +7% |
| Muskoka--Kawarthas | $81,016 | +7% |
| Capitale-Nationale | $80,245 | +6% |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | $79,060 | +4% |
| Avalon Peninsula | $79,040 | +4% |
| West Coast--Northern Peninsula--Labrador | $79,040 | +4% |
| Prince Edward Island | $79,040 | +4% |
| New Brunswick | $79,040 | +4% |
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 | $75,997 | The middle earner |
| Mean | $75,740 | Pulled up by top earners |
| 25th percentile | $61,177 | — |
| 75th percentile | $88,920 | — |
| Hourly | $38.46 | 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 do social workers earn in Canada?
- The median is $75,997 a year, about $38.46 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. $75,997 converts to $53,879 at the exchange rate on 2026-07-29, and buys what $60,292 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
- Business development officers and market researchers and analysts $86,944
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