DURHAM -- The timing of a minimum wage hike couldn’t be better for Whitby bartender Cari Calderone.

The hourly wage increase from $8 to $8.75 kicked in Monday giving the Boston Pizza employee extra funds she could use to help pay for her July wedding.

“I’m very excited. It makes a big difference,” said Ms. Calderone, 32, from her full-time job at Boston Pizza on Consumers Road where she has worked for seven years.

Although with tips she generally earns $15 to $20 an hour, the increase will help during the slower periods like the post-Christmas season.

While thousands like her, especially in lower paying restaurant and service sector jobs, will be happy with the increase some employers are concerned with the hit to their bottom line.    

Steve Wilson, the owner and operator of several McDonald’s restaurants in Oshawa and Clarington, says the nine per cent hike is too much too soon.

“I do not have a problem with an increase in the minimum wage; it needs to go up but it could be more inflationary,” said Mr. Wilson, adding that inflation isn’t increasing by that rate. “The problem we have is it’s arbitrary and sudden. An increase of nine per cent each year is significant and makes it hard for our industry.”

The Province plans further minimum wage increases -- to $9.50 next year and $10.25 in 2010.

Considering labour represents one of his largest costs, combined with the rising price of food and overall inflation, the time is ripe for increases in some restaurant items. Although he tries to avoid price hikes and will look for other efficiencies in their operations to offset costs it will be necessary on some items starting within a month.    

“We are wrestling with it,” he said.    

Manpower services in Pickering, an employment agency that screens and hires workers for commercial clients and then collects a portion of the position’s hourly allocation, is concerned about the potential negative impacts of the minimum wage hike, said Kim Murray, of Manpower’s Pickering office.     

Either the employer or the employment service who does the hiring for the client will have to absorb the increased cost of workers who are hired at minimum wage, said Ms. Murray.

“Our clients might say, ‘We are hit with 75 cents we want you to cut our costs,’ which will eat into our profits,” she said.

With the softening in the manufacturing sector and a competitive marketplace, “most companies are not making huge profits so this will cut into theirs.”     

“It’s hurting companies, especially manufacturing,” she said, adding that some workers hired by Manpower to work in unskilled labour or assembly jobs in manufacturing plants earn minimum wage.

It will may cause employers to do their own recruiting or else expect to pay Manpower, as their employment agency, a reduced hourly rate for workers it hires on their behalf.

Still she says it brings the minimum closer to the rate workers demand.

“Most people feel entitled to at least $9 per hour. They go to school, have bills to pay,” said Ms. Murray. “It’s always tough to sell lower wage jobs.”