Alberta’s minimum wage is set to increase to $15 per hour on Oct. 1.

Many have been voicing their concerns on social media about how this will affect them personally, wondering whether the price of products and services they use will rise.

According to the Government of Alberta, “About 254,000 Albertans, 10.6 per cent of all workers – earn less than $15 per hour. More than half of them work full-time and nearly 40 per cent are parents.”

The province says the reason for the increase is to give minimum wage workers a livable wage.

Dustin Quirk, a business instructor at Red Deer College, says that the higher minimum wage could have both benefits and downfalls for employees and business owners. Consumers, he says, might not notice any difference.

“It’s a hard balance because businesses’ can choose to raise their price but then they might also see loss of business that way because they can’t really pass on the full cost to the customer, and that’s where the business owners are going to feel the impact,” Quirk says.

The government website provides a list of what it’s doing to offset the added cost for employers, like cutting the small business tax.

In Lacombe, Rieley Kay owns the restaurant Cilantro and Chive.

“We can look at our projections and we can look at our labour staffs and our history in that regard and make some adjustments, maybe we modify an hour here, an hour there to keep a profitable business,” Kay says.

He says in the restaurant industry, they can do things differently to avoid increasing prices.

“We will just have to take it one step at a time and see where it impacts us, right now we are making some changes to our staffing levels as well as our staffing labour as well as making sure we hire the right staff to make sure that they can provide the quality of service that we need,” he says.

Quirk says that for those businesses that are less labour-intensive, or use more automation, the government’s small business tax cut could be extremely beneficial.

“Any reduction in tax will help the small business owner out; it will improve their bottom line. It just depends on how much their business is affected by the minimum wage. If it is quite labour intensive and they have a lot of staff they might not get the full benefit of it,” Quirk says.

For Kay, he says they will have to adapt to the changes as they come.

“We’re just going to be playing the hand that is dealt to us,” he says.

He adds that it’s business as usual for the restaurant.

“We’re going to make sure that all of our staff, whether they are starting today or they have been with us for two years, will be well-versed in what we do, how we do it, and be able to communicate that with the guest so we can always exceed the guests’ expectation.”