CEOs pass average Canadian salary by Jan. 2

By the time most Canadians drag themselves into work on Tuesday after the holidays, the country's highest-paid CEOs will already have earned the average employee's annual salary.

By 9:46 a.m. Tuesday, the 100 highest-paid private-sector executives will have earned an average Canadian's salary of $38,010, says a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

For minimum-wage workers, the country's top earners made their entire salary average of $15,931 by New Year's Day.

"When you say that the average CEO made $9 million in 2005 and the average Canadian made ($38,000), the comparison between those things is so far into the stratosphere that I think people have trouble just coming to terms with what the comparison means,'' Hugh Mackenzie, an economist with the independent research institute that focuses on issues of social and economic justice, told The Canadian Press.

"Converting it into time sort of puts it into a frame that people can get their heads around."