Social Policy in Ontario

Precarious work is now the new norm, United Way report says

Posted on May 21, 2015 in Debates

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TheStar.com – News/GTA – More than half of GTA workers in temporary, contract or part-time jobs, United Way, McMaster University report finds.
May 21 2015.   By: Sara Mojtehedzadeh, Work and Wealth reporter, Laurie Monsebraaten, Social justice reporter

Precarious employment is here to stay, a new study shows, and Toronto’s new economic reality impacts everyone from the working poor to the middle class.  The research confirms United Way and McMaster University’s groundbreaking 2013 findings that fewer than half of workers in the GTA and Hamilton are in permanent, full-time jobs.  Instead, about 52 per cent of workers are in temporary, contract, or part-time positions.

“All the indicators suggest that this is the trend of the new labour market,” said Wayne Lewchuk, the report’s lead researcher.  “This is the new form of employment.”

It is also a major cause of social stress for people, regardless of income.  Precarious workers are twice as likely as those in stable jobs to report having mental health problems.  They are six times more likely to delay starting a relationship because of job uncertainty.  They are three times more likely to delay having kids.  And almost half of precarious workers say their employment situation disrupts their family life.

READ MORE: Potential solutions to city’s precarious employment problem < http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/21/potential-solutions-to-citys-precarious-employment-problem.html >

Diana Mavunduse, 41, who spent most of the past seven years knitting together various part-time and contract jobs to make ends meet, admits she hasn’t even thought about starting a family.  “Back home, I would be married already with children,” she says of life in her native Zimbabwe.  “But when you are working precarious jobs you don’t have time to meet anybody.”

The former journalist and international development specialist just landed a full-time, permanent job with benefits in a downtown social service agency. Only now is she beginning to discuss the future with her fiancé.  “Is it time to settle down?” she wonders. “Is it too late for children?”

As a community development co-ordinator, Mavunduse is able to draw on her own experience working as a cleaner and a telemarketer to help other newcomers who are struggling.  “It’s important when you are working with people to meet them where they are,” she says.  “A lot of them are doctors and engineers who come with their families,” she says. “They study for years for a career, but end up coming here and getting a (menial) job. They end up focusing on their children.”  As a result, the pressure on families is immense, Mavunduse adds.

“Now it is time to take more concrete action,” said United Way Toronto CEO Susan McIsaac.

The report, entitled “The Precarity Penalty,” warns that without such action, precarious work will “not only affect the ability of people to build stable and fulfilling lives, but it will threaten our region’s capacity to develop a competitive workforce.”  That’s because workers in short-term, insecure employment are getting less and less access to on-the-job training that could help build a career.

“I think that’s a potentially major way that competitiveness can be compromised by this kind of employment,” said Lewchuk, a professor of Labour Studies at McMaster University.  One of the study’s notable findings is that white women were the only group to see a decline in precarious employment. The percentage of white women in secure employment has increased by 12 per cent since 2013, and the percentage in precarious employment dropped by 9 per cent.

Meanwhile, the percentage of men in secure employment has dropped by 10 per cent, and their share of precarious employment has jumped by 19 per cent.  Lewchuk said the trend is at least in part due to the decline in secure and traditionally male-dominated manufacturing jobs. Women are more likely to be concentrated in public sector jobs such as education and health care, which tend to be more secure.

The research surveyed 4,193 workers in the Greater Toronto-Hamilton Area ages 25 to 65. It seeks to expand on Statistics Canada data, which only measures temporary employment and self-employment rather than other measures of precarious work such as uncertain work schedules and irregular earnings.

While the impact of precarious work hits low-wage workers the hardest, the report confirms that the consequences reach across the income spectrum.

Middle-income earners in precarious work, for example, reported feeling greater anxiety about family life, their debt obligations and maintaining their standard of living than even low-income workers with secure jobs.
Some 48 per cent of low-wage, insecure workers and 36 per cent of middle-income, insecure workers said their employment negatively affected their family life. Meanwhile, just 30 per cent of low-income workers with stable employment said their jobs interfered with life at home.

Almost 37 per cent of the area’s most vulnerable workers also reported experiencing poor mental health, compared to just 20 per cent of those in secure jobs.  The report suggests a variety of solutions to tackle the city’s increasingly insecure job landscape, and to mitigate its impact on communities and families.  These include improving training for precarious workers, updating the Employment Standards Act to include provisions such as fair scheduling and building a high-quality, affordable child-care system.

The move to non-standard work wouldn’t be so bad if the rest of society was set up to accommodate it, Lewchuk says.  “I think the problem is that we’ve got a whole set of institutions that were built in the 1970s that don’t match this new form of employment that’s becoming more and more prevalent.”

McIsaac says it’s time policymakers and civil society started dealing with the new reality.  “This is the moment,” she adds. “I believe there is real momentum.”

< http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/21/precarious-work-is-now-the-new-norm-united-way-report-says.html >

Tags: economy, participation, poverty, standard of living

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