Jennifer Murray – Founder & CEO, JMC HR Consulting

February 2026

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I’ve spent the last several months buried in compensation data, building out our 2026 Compensation Insights Report, finishing up market studies for clients, and having many honest conversations with business owners and HR leaders across Atlantic Canada about what’s keeping them up at night.

Here’s what I can tell you: 2026 is a weird year for compensation. Budgets are tightening. Talent is still hard to find in certain roles. Pay transparency legislation is coming whether you’re ready or not. And most organizations are making critical pay decisions based on data that barely represents our region.

So let me walk you through the five things I think every employer in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, and Newfoundland & Labrador needs to be paying attention to right now.

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(1) Your salary budget is shrinking – but your talent problems aren’t

The national data is clear: salary increase budgets across Canada are trending down. Mercer’s latest research shows the average projected salary increase for 2026 is hovering around 3%, with salary structure adjustments at about 2.7%. Normandin Beaudry’s numbers tell a similar story; the average total salary increase for 2026 is expected to land around 3.4% when you include additional targeted budgets.

That’s a meaningful drop from the 3.8% we saw in 2024 and the 3.5% in 2025.

But here’s the thing that nobody talks about at the national level: Atlantic Canada isn’t operating in the same labour market as Toronto or Vancouver. We have specific, acute shortages in skilled trades, healthcare, IT, and mid-management roles that aren’t easing up just because the national unemployment rate ticked to 6.5%.

In our 2026 research, we found organizations across the region with roles sitting 17 to 48% below competitive market rates – and they didn’t know it. They’d been applying flat percentage increases to a base that was already behind. A 3% increase on a salary that’s 30% below market is still 27% below market.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Don’t spread your 3% evenly like peanut butter. Get strategic. Identify your critical roles (the ones where you’d be in real trouble if someone left tomorrow) and direct your dollars there. A targeted approach to compensation adjustments will always outperform an across-the-board bump.

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(2) National salary surveys are lying to you (sort of…)

I say this every chance I get because it matters that much: the national compensation data most organizations rely on dramatically underrepresents Atlantic Canada.

We dug into the composition of data from several major national surveys and found that Ontario accounts for over 62% of benchmarked positions. All four Atlantic provinces combined? About 3.4%.

Think about what that means. When you pull a “national average” salary for a Project Manager or an HR Director, you’re getting a number that’s overwhelmingly influenced by the Toronto and GTA labour markets. That number might be too high for your region – leading you to overpay for roles where local supply is adequate. Or it might be too low for roles where Atlantic Canada’s talent shortage has actually driven wages above national norms, such as many skilled trades and healthcare positions.

Either way, you’re making decisions in the dark.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Benchmark against Atlantic Canada-specific data wherever possible. If you’re using national surveys, at least weight the Atlantic data more heavily and cross-reference with what you’re actually seeing in your own recruitment. What are candidates asking for? What are you losing people to? Those data points are more honest than any national median.

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(3) Pay transparency is coming to New Brunswick, and you’re not ready…

This is the one that has the most urgency. In its 2025 Throne Speech, the New Brunswick government announced its intention to introduce pay transparency legislation in 2026. Public consultations are already underway to develop the framework.

PEI already requires employers to include pay ranges in job postings and prohibits asking about salary history. Newfoundland & Labrador has passed its own pay equity and transparency legislation. Ontario’s pay transparency rules took effect on January 1, 2026, requiring employers with 25+ employees to include salary ranges in all job postings.

The direction is unmistakable. And Nova Scotia already has its own pay transparency provisions in place.

The organizations that will struggle aren’t the ones that can’t comply with a posting requirement. It’s the ones who post a range, and then can’t explain to existing employees why they’re sitting at the bottom of it.

Here’s the part that concerns me: most of the Atlantic Canadian employers I work with don’t have defensible salary structures. They have a rough idea of what they pay people, a few ranges that haven’t been updated in three years, and many decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. That works fine when nobody can see behind the curtain. It falls apart fast when you’re legally required to post salary ranges, and every current employee can compare their pay to the posted range for their role.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT
Start now. Don’t wait for the legislation to be finalized.
– Audit your current pay practices. Do you know where every employee sits relative to the market?
– Build or update your salary structure with defensible, market-based ranges.
– Develop a compensation philosophy that articulates why you pay the way you pay.
– Train your managers. When transparency hits, they’re the ones fielding questions from their teams. They need to be able to explain pay decisions with confidence.

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(4) Total compensation is the conversation now — not just salary.

Robert Half’s 2026 research shows that 66% of Canadian workers cite flexibility in when and where they work as a top influence on their job satisfaction and decision to stay. And 83% of employers agree that professionals with specialized skills earn more than peers in the same role.

Salary still matters — a lot. But the conversation has shifted. Candidates and employees are evaluating the full picture: base pay, benefits, variable compensation, flexibility, professional development, retirement contributions, and even extra vacation days or compressed workweeks.

In Atlantic Canada, this is actually an advantage if you use it well. Many of our clients can’t match the base salary offered by a Toronto-based remote job. But they can offer things that remote-first companies struggle with: genuine community, meaningful work, a manageable cost of living, and a quality of life that’s hard to replicate. The challenge is to quantify and communicate that value.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Build a total rewards statement for your employees. Show them the full value of what they receive — not just their paycheque, but the employer-paid benefits, retirement match, vacation days, flexible arrangements, and any other perks. Most employees significantly underestimate the value of their total compensation package. When you put a dollar figure on the full picture, it changes the conversation.

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(5) The “hollow middle” is still your biggest risk

This one doesn’t get enough attention. Across Atlantic Canada, we’re seeing a pattern I call the “hollow middle” — experienced mid-career professionals in the 35-to-55 age range who are retiring, relocating, or being recruited away, and there’s no one ready to step into their roles.

These aren’t entry-level positions you can fill with a job posting and a competitive starting salary. These are the people who know how to run your operation, manage your projects, lead your teams, and train the next generation. When they leave, institutional knowledge walks out the door with them.

The compensation angle here is critical. These mid-level roles are often the most compressed — sandwiched between entry-level positions that have been bumped up to attract new hires and senior/executive roles that get the most attention in compensation reviews. The result is a pay gap that pushes your most experienced operators to look elsewhere.

WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Look specifically at your mid-career compensation. Are your experienced project managers, supervisors, team leads, and senior individual contributors being compensated in a way that reflects their actual value to the organization? In many cases, the cost of bringing these roles to market is far less than the cost of losing someone and trying to replace irreplaceable experience.

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The bottom line.

2026 isn’t the year to set it and forget it on compensation. The combination of shrinking budgets, incoming transparency legislation, regional talent shortages, and the ongoing shift toward total rewards means that organizations that take a strategic, data-informed approach to pay will have a real competitive advantage — and those that don’t will feel it.

If any of this hit close to home, that’s kind of the point. These are real patterns we’re seeing across every industry we work with in Atlantic Canada. And the good news is that none of these challenges require a massive budget to address — they require information, structure, and a willingness to look honestly at where you stand.

That’s what we do at JMC. If you want to talk about where your compensation strategy sits relative to the market, we’re always up for that conversation.

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Jennifer Murray

Founder & Lead Consultant, JMC HR Consulting

Jennifer is the founder of JMC HR Consulting, a boutique compensation consulting and recruitment firm based in Moncton, NB, serving organizations across Canada. JMC publishes the annual 2026 Atlantic Canada Compensation Insights Report, covering salary data for 150+ roles across 20+ industries.

Where does your compensation strategy stand? Get a clear picture of how your pay compares to the national and Atlantic Canadian markets. Let’s Connect: jennifer@teamjmc.ca