Average Salary
Calculated as:
Average = Sum of all salaries ÷ Number of employees- Gives the overall arithmetic mean.
- Sensitive to outliers: a few very high or very low salaries can pull the average up or down.
Example: If 9 employees earn $60k and 1 executive earns $600k → the average is $114k, which doesn’t represent the “typical” employee.
Median Salary
The middle value when all salaries are sorted from lowest to highest. Half of employees earn less than or equal to this amount, and half earn greater than or equal to it.
- Resistant to outliers: one $600k executive won’t distort the median.
Example: With the same 10 employees, the median is $60k — a better reflection of what most people earn.
In Practice for OPS Statistics
- Average salary shows the overall cost burden of salaries.
- Median salary better reflects what the “typical” employee earns, especially in organizations with large pay disparities.
👉 Simple way to remember:
Average = total picture (but skewed by extremes)
Median = typical employee experience
Indexed Growth of OPS, GDP, and Population
This chart compares the growth of OPS average salary, OPS workforce (FTEs), Ontario’s population, and provincial GDP — all standardized to a common base year = 100.
An index value of 120 means a 20% increase since the base year. This makes it easier to compare trends across very different scales (dollars, people, GDP).
Sick Leave Distribution & Sick Leave Trend Comparison (Indexed Growth)
Distribution: Shows the proportion of OPS employees taking fewer than 6 sick days vs. 6 or more per year. This highlights attendance patterns and workforce health.
Indexed Trend: Tracks the same categories over time, normalized to a base year. This allows easy comparison of how sick leave behavior changes relative to past years.
Employees counted in the “fewer than 6 sick days” group include those who did not take any sick days at all.
Union Representation Over Time
Shows how union membership within OPS has shifted over time. The major unions represented include:
- OPSEU/SEFPO – Ontario Public Service Employees Union (broad OPS coverage).
- AMAPCEO – Association of Management, Administrative and Professional Crown Employees (professional and management staff).
- PEGO – Professional Engineers Government of Ontario (engineering staff).
- OECTA / Teachers’ Federations – Various teaching and education-related unions.
- OPPA – Ontario Provincial Police Association (police officers and civilian staff within the OPP).
- PSAT – Professional Services Association of Teachers (education and instructional staff in specific OPS-related roles).
Tracking these over time helps illustrate shifts in representation, bargaining influence, and the makeup of the OPS workforce.