Machine operators, mineral and metal processing salary in Canada
$69,160CAD/YR
Machine operators, mineral and metal processing in Canada earns a median of $69,160 a year, about $35.00 an hour.
SOURCE·Employment and Social Development Canada — Job Bank wage data·Open Government Licence – Canada·REVIEWED 2025
What $69,160 is actually worth
Move this wage out of Canada and it converts to $49,032. Spend it where it was earned and it buys what $54,868 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 69,160 / FX(CAD->USD) adjusted = CAD 69,160 / 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 |
|---|---|---|
| Saguenay--Lac-Saint-Jean | $98,800 | +43% |
| Mauricie | $96,824 | +40% |
| Côte-Nord | $94,848 | +37% |
| Nord-du-Québec | $94,848 | +37% |
| Abitibi-Témiscamingue | $90,422 | +31% |
| Wood Buffalo--Cold Lake | $90,145 | +30% |
| West Coast--Northern Peninsula--Labrador | $86,410 | +25% |
| Capitale-Nationale | $86,371 | +25% |
| North Coast | $84,237 | +22% |
| Thompson--Okanagan | $80,423 | +16% |
| Centre-du-Québec | $80,265 | +16% |
| Lanaudière | $80,008 | +16% |
| Quebec | $79,040 | +14% |
| Kootenay | $78,803 | +14% |
| Northeast | $78,250 | +13% |
| Banff--Jasper--Rocky Mountain House | $77,598 | +12% |
| Avalon Peninsula | $75,503 | +9% |
| Laurentides | $75,286 | +9% |
| British Columbia | $75,088 | +9% |
| Lower Mainland | $74,614 | +8% |
| Bas-Saint-Laurent | $74,416 | +8% |
| Edmonton | $74,298 | +7% |
| Estrie | $73,270 | +6% |
| Montérégie | $73,191 | +6% |
| Calgary | $72,737 | +5% |
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 | $69,160 | The middle earner |
| Mean | $69,180 | Pulled up by top earners |
| 25th percentile | $53,352 | — |
| 75th percentile | $82,992 | — |
| Hourly | $35.00 | 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 machine operators, mineral and metal processing earn in Canada?
- The median is $69,160 a year, about $35.00 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. $69,160 converts to $49,032 at the exchange rate on 2026-07-29, and buys what $54,868 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
- Assemblers and inspectors of other wood products $43,887
- Assemblers and inspectors, electrical appliance, apparatus and equipment manufacturing $44,085
- Assemblers, fabricators and inspectors, industrial electrical motors and transformers $44,855
- Binding and finishing machine operators $43,472
- Camera, platemaking and other prepress occupations $51,080
- Chemical plant machine operators $50,348
- Concrete, clay and stone forming operators $51,376
- Electronics assemblers, fabricators, inspectors and testers $41,397
- Fish and seafood plant workers $34,086
- Foundry workers $49,400
- Furniture and fixture assemblers, finishers, refinishers and inspectors $45,033
- Glass forming and finishing machine operators and glass cutters $44,934
