Employment

A report by University of Toronto researchers exploring the rapidly growing gig economy reveals new insights and a deeper understanding of how online platform-mediated work has the potential to transform the future of work and health in Canada and internationally.

“Gig work presents potential opportunities and vulnerabilities for workers, but little is known about their experience in this new labour market,” said Principal Investigator Denise Gastaldo, associate professor at U of T’s Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and director of the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

In the context of the rise of digital platform businesses, “gigs” are short-term, temporary contracts that are typically low paid and provide no training, health, or retirement benefits. More and more Canadians are participating in the gig economy, a trend with significant health implications, especially related to precarious work and income insecurity – major predictors of disease.

According to the recently published report, Towards an Understanding of Workers in the Global Gig Economy, measuring the size of the gig economy is challenging because the work is largely invisible and not captured by existing labour market statistics and economic indicators. What is known is the number of people in Toronto who describe their job as “temporary” grew by 40 per cent between 1997 and 2013.

“Studies show the tension between opportunity and vulnerability for workers, but too little is known about how these advantages and disadvantages are experienced differently across demographics and regions,” said Uttam Bajwa, lead author of the report and research associate with Dalla Lana's office of global public health education and training.

This shift in the workforce and structure of employment has major implications for the Canadian and global economy. Global and country-level policies have not kept pace with the “gigification” of the labour market, leaving gig workers excluded from existing skills development, health and social protection policies, all of which are designed for the traditional labour market.

Although the stereotype of the typical gig worker is that they are young, white, and male, this too is changing quickly. Groups associated with precarious work, such as women, immigrants, youth and older workers, are also participating. Gig work also has major implications for the socio-economic well-being of workers.

Read the report

“Gig workers share occupational vulnerabilities and aspects of precarity (e.g. income insecurity) with other workers, but they must also contend with platform-based vulnerabilities, such as social isolation, platform businesses’ control of pricing and workflow, and work-related stress due to surveillance,” said Bajwa.

The report provides frameworks for approaching gig worker vulnerabilities, underscores the importance of exploring the knowledge gaps, and the need for further research on the social, economic, and health implications of gig work.

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The research was also supported with in-kind contributions from U of T's Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Dalla Lana School of Public Health.

Caregiver work needs to be treated like a globally traded commodity: U of T study

krisha — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 19:12:01 +0000

Caregiver work needs to be treated like a globally traded commodity: U of T study

krisha Wed, 07/26/2017 - 15:12

Cutline

Demand for care workers and nannies has gone up but wages remain low, says U of T study (photo By BSIP/UIG via Getty Images)

Peter Boisseau

Author legacy

Peter Boisseau

Topic

Global Lens

Sociology

Faculty of Arts & Science

Employment

Subheadline

For care workers, predominantly immigrant women of colour from less-developed countries, inequality has kept wages low

Wages and conditions in most of the developed world are often abysmal for care workers, many of them immigrant women of colour from less-developed countries, says a U of T sociology professor.

With an aging population and more affluent women in the workforce, demand for nannies and other care workers has gone up, but inequality has kept wages low, says Professor Ito Peng.

Because care has long been seen as “women’s work” provided for “free” and men are predominantly not involved in caring for children or aging relatives, she says it has long been undervalued. The Faculty of Arts & Science researcher, the principal investigator for a six-year project on gender migration and care work, is now calling for care work to be treated as a globally traded commodity.

Peng and her colleagues have begun to ramp up a public awareness campaign by posting videos, information fact sheets and stories online. She has also co-edited and contributed a chapter for a book, Gender, Migration and the Work of Care, to be published next month.

“The care economy is huge with major impacts on those involved both as carers and cared-for,” says Peng. “What I’m trying to do in my research is provide information and a larger framework for people to understand how important this is,” says Peng.

“We have to start to treat care work as a form of globally traded commodity, like environmental and natural resources that are often undervalued and inadequately accounted for in national economic accounts. I hope to generate a public debate about this. I think once people understand, we can make progressive changes and not try to hire care workers for exploitative wages.”

She says there are more people now working in nursing homes in the United States than in steel and automobile manufacturing combined, but inequality in wages exist. A significant proportion of those care workers are women from countries in Southeast Asia, such as the Philippines, says Peng.

“That inequality has very little to do with merit, and more to do with gender, race and which part of the world you come from.”

Although the new service-based economies of the 21st century belie that concept, this gender inequality has continued to shape care as low-paid work done primarily by women.

Another level of inequality has emerged as middle class and wealthy women in developed countries such as Canada and the U.S. outsource care work to poor women with little education and few other options for employment.

The irony of this global socio-economic chain of exploitation and inequality is the interdependency between rich and poor countries that props up their respective economies, she says.

Wealthy women in rich countries are able to focus on earning income by exploiting poor women in less developed countries, who are recruited and incentivized to leave their own families for poorly paid care work abroad because there are no jobs available locally, and remit money back home in foreign currency, Peng says.

“One cannot function without the other,” she adds.

“On a global scale, that further intensifies this extreme inequality. And there is a real polarization in the care that children and elderly get based on their income and class.”

A recent study of seven developed countries compared the hypothetical economic impacts of governments investing two per cent of their GDP in care versus construction, the latter being the traditional way things such as infrastructure spending are used to spur economic activity.

In all seven countries, the number of jobs created by investing in care over construction was significantly higher, and there were direct and indirect social and economic benefits as well, such as greater gender equality.

While the study did not include Canada, Peng says that “my hypothesis is the outcomes would be very similar.” She hopes to pursue that aspect in her next project.

“If we invest two per cent of our GDP in the care industry rather than construction, I think we’ll get a bigger return on the investment, more employment and more direct and indirect social and economic benefits,” she says.

“And the end result will not only be children and older people with better care, social and health outcomes but also more gender equality, which is something we all want.”

The research was supported with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), National Institute of Health, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Research Foundation of Korea and the National Science Foundation.

U of T staff, faculty bring their kids to work

geoff.vendeville — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 16:11:46 +0000

U of T staff, faculty bring their kids to work

geoff.vendeville Fri, 04/28/2017 - 12:11

Cutline

Madison Chotoo, in Grade 5, practices her engraving at a tinsmithing workshop put on by U of T trade services. The kids made planters in time for Mother's Day (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

Human Resources & Equity

Employment

Subheadline

Close to 500 kids between Grades 4 and 7 visited U of T for Bring Our Children to Work Day

Under the watchful eye of her dad Raymond, Madison Chotoo carefully engraved an “I love you” into a strip of copper.

It was a practice run before decorating a planter that she made during a tinsmithing workshop hosted by U of T trade services on Thursday.

“I'm sweating,” she said, after about an hour labouring away.

The activity was one of many organized across the university for Bring Our Children to Work Day, a U of T tradition for more than two decades, according to Francesca Dobbin, director of family programs and services.

“Parents take pride from working at U of T, and this is a great opportunity to showcase their work to their kids,” she told U of T News.

“All the tours are really hands-on, so they get to experiment and come away with things.”

Along with Chotoo, whose dad is a plumber, three other children fashioned copper planters, many of which were dedicated to their moms for Mother's Day. Kaelin Haire, in Grade 6, came away from the experience with a newfound appreciation for her grandfather Murray Haire's work and others' in trade services.

“You have to love what you do to do as much as they do for the university,” she said.

From left, Orlando and Mara Luisoto, Raymond and Madison Chotoo, Murray and Kaelin Haire, Nik and Nektarios Angelinos (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Earlier in the day, U of T's Chancellor Michael Wilson, invited five kids to Simcoe Hall to try on university officials' Convocation robes and hold the ceremonial mace. Wilson emphasized the importance of lifelong learning.

“I am a lot older than you,” he said. “And I'm still learning – all the time, I'm learning. The reason I am is because I work with young people.”

U of T employees' children got to try on the president's and honorary degree recipient's robes at Simcoe Hall (photo by Krista Boniface)

And elsewhere on the downtown Toronto campus, 11-year-old Liam Staig learned to build a motor out of a battery, magnet and wire in a physics workshop.

His mom, Emma Scully who works in human resources in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, also showed him around.

“I loved the old buildings,” he said.

Emma Scully and her son Liam, 11, toured the St. George campus on Bring Our Children to Work Day (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Daphna Heller's sons are used to shadowing their mom on Bring Our Children to Work Day. This year, one visited the greenhouse with experts from the department of ecology and evolutionary biology while his older brother learned about chemistry.

Their mother, an associate professor in linguistics, brought them to her lab later that afternoon.

“They're going to do an experiment,” she said. “I can't collect the data on them because it's not a kid's lab, but they can do it just for fun. Then, they'll know what my experiments look like.”

Heller and her boys, 13 and 10 (photo by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Over at U of T Mississauga, Dave Mazierski, an associate professor in biomedical communications and biology, led a lab demonstration – and found no shortage of volunteers.

Success isn't a straight line: U of T alumna reflects on life after graduation

geoff.vendeville — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 16:06:05 +0000

Success isn't a straight line: U of T alumna reflects on life after graduation

geoff.vendeville Thu, 04/27/2017 - 12:06

Cutline

A procession of graduating students on the front lawn at the downtown Toronto campus (photo by Ken Jones)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendedville

Topic

Our Community

Convocation

Undergraduate Education

careers

Employment

Subheadline

Next Steps conference April 28 and 29 helps students plan for the great unknown after graduation

Elizabeth Ching had a post-graduation plan.

She had laid the groundwork for a career in content marketing by completing internships as a student. She received a job offer even before her dual degree in linguistics, and book and media studies.

But things didn't go exactly as planned.

Ching was unhappy in her new workplace. After seeking advice from a counsellor at U of T's Career Centre, she quit and went back to the drawing board. She fired off more applications and was on LinkedIn constantly looking for work.

Her persistence paid off: she was offered a job at a startup about a month later.

Ching is returning to campus this Friday with a message for the class of 2017: “Success isn't a straight line.”

She joins Weil Huang, a career educator at the Career Centre, and other alumni for a panel discussion at the two-day Next Steps conference on the obstacles students may face after graduation.

See a schedule of the Next Steps conference

U of T has one of the world's best graduate employability outcomes

U of T News spoke to Ching ahead of the conference as she reflected on her career path and advice to grads.

Elizabeth Ching (left), one of the speakers at the Next Steps conference, says new grads shouldn't always accept the first job offer they receive (photo courtesy of Elizabeth Ching).

How did you feel in the weeks before convocation?

I didn't really have time to be worried [about post graduation] because I was just sending out job applications like a machine.

I think mostly I was excited for the end of school and the start of a new chapter.

Can you describe your path after graduation?

In the beginning it was really rocky. I started working two weeks before I graduated. It was the first job that was offered to me. I had been applying frantically since September of my fourth year. In April, since I didn't have exams, I went back home [to Markham], and I sent out like a billion applications.

What were some of the obstacles you encountered after convocation and how did you overcome them?

That first job I was talking about – I guess because it was my first job – I wasn't sure what to expect. I felt very uncomfortable and didn't like the environment. I was very intimidated and scared. I didn't like the overall vibe of the office, and I wasn't coping very well.

I didn't know if it was just me not adjusting well to work life or if it was the work itself. I just needed someone to talk to who wasn't a friend or family member.

I went to the U of T Career Centre and talked to one of the counsellors there, Kate Bowers. She just listened to me and gave me an unbiased take on what I told her and how to think about this job. Through that, I was able to separate my personal feelings from the workplace environment. I could see it wasn't just my problem, or that I had to get over it. It was a problem of the workplace – this wasn't working out. So I quit.

What happened next?

I started looking for jobs again. I was churning out a lot of applications every day. I was always on LinkedIn. I was very persistent.

Then, I found my current role at CrowdRiff. I got an interview here and when I met with my current manager, I felt such a relief. There was such a huge difference between her attitude and the way she approached management and marketing. I was very happy to accept their job offer.

Based on your experience, any tips for the class of 2017?

I would say don't accept the first offer you get. Really evaluate the company, your interview, your manager. Ask yourself: “Does this look like a good fit?” I think it's important to sit down and think about whether you want the job as opposed to “they want me, so I'll take this job.”

What's your give advice on how to bounce back from adversity?

I think the key is talking to people who care about you and having someone who will listen to you. You need to separate yourself from the problem and realize you're not the failure.

Anything else you'd tell this year's graduating class?

Get on LinkedIn. Get on Twitter. Make sure you have a presence so people can find you so you don't have to do all the looking yourself.

More job tips from the Career Centre:

Erika Bailey, lead coordinator of career exploration at the centre, has advice for the next wave of U of T grads.

Think about who you are and what motivates you: “Know more about yourself, including what you value in life. For us to be great explorers of our careers, we have to understand who we are and what changes we want to effect.”
Be open to possibility: “This means that we do not yet know what we do not know – jobs are evolving and being created every day – so keep an open mind to opportunities and understand how they align with our skills, interests, values and future career learning.”
Know how to communicate your ideas and build connections: “Look at really expanding your network, connecting with alumni and participating in conferences. The data has shown us that students who participate in co-curricular activities, those who reflect on their lives and their skills, are the ones who are more attractive to employers.”

Asian job applicants face tougher odds: U of T researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

ullahnor — Wed, 25 Jan 2017 15:47:37 +0000

Asian job applicants face tougher odds: U of T researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

ullahnor Wed, 01/25/2017 - 10:47

Cutline

Professor Jeffrey Reitz says the findings call for an “anonymized resumé review” process to identify candidates by code not name (photo by Kathryn Decker via Flickr)

Adrienne Harry

Author legacy

Adrienne Harry

Topic

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Job applicants with Asian names and Canadian qualifications have less chance of getting called in for interviews than those with Anglo-Canadian names, even with a better education, say researchers at the University of Toronto who are part of a joint study.

Using data from a recent large-scale Canadian employment report to examine interview callback rates, the study by the University of Toronto and Ryerson University shows discrimination against Asian job seekers in Canada.

Co-authored by Jeffrey Reitz, sociology professor at the Faculty of Arts & Science and director of ethnic, immigration and pluralism studies at U of T's Munk School of Global Affairs, the report assesses the extent of discrimination experienced by job applicants with Asian (Chinese, Indian or Pakistani) names.

Called “Do Large Employers Treat Racial Minorities More Fairly?” the report shows that Asian-named job applicants are less likely than Anglo-named job seekers to be selected for an interview, even if their qualifications are identical.

Asian-named applicants are at even more of a disadvantage if some or all of their qualifications are obtained outside of Canada. With foreign credentials, applicants with Asian names are 45 to 60 per cent less likely to be selected for an interview compared to their Anglo-named counterparts. These hiring biases are most prevalent in smaller businesses, which employ more than 70 per cent of private sector employees in Canada.

“A lot of Canadians think that we’ve already addressed this problem, that it was taken care of decades ago when we brought in various policies to address it,” says Reitz. “But this study clearly shows that this isn’t the case. We’re focusing on a particular part of the recruitment process – a critical part – but it’s only one stage. So whatever biases are underlying recruitment decisions might also underlie other decisions employers make.”

Reitz points out that discrimination has significant impacts on Asian job seekers as well as employers. While these applicants have to try harder to find work, employers stand to miss out on a skilled and valuable talent pool. And without continuing research, Reitz cautions that hiring bias may be hard to spot.

“We can learn a lot from this type of study because we’re looking at behaviour that is somewhat ‘invisible.’ When an employer throws a resume in the wastebasket, no one is there to witness it,” says Reitz. “For many, the obvious remedy to discrimination is to go to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. But it’s hard to speak up about being a victim of discrimination if you never find out about it.”

Reitz, along with co-authors Philip Oreopoulos from U of T Mississauga’s department of economics and Rupa Banarjee from Ryerson University, attended a panel discussion on the study thus week.

Hosted by Hire Immigrants and moderated by Senator Ratna Omidvar, the panel will discuss how to use this research to prompt meaningful action within Canadian companies, and what role government, educational institutions, and labour unions can play in creating a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

Although the report highlights disadvantages for a very specific group of job seekers, Reitz says it’s in everyone’s best interest to address hiring bias. “When qualified applicants miss out on opportunities for jobs, we should all be concerned. It is in our collective interest to ensure that everyone can contribute his or her skills and abilities.”

Reitz, told the Star that the findings call for an “anonymized resumé review” process, which would identify candidates by code not name.

“Some people are concerned this is something we are doing to accommodate minorities, giving an advantage to minority people by deferring to them,” said Reitz. “But no matter what political correctness is doing, it is not offsetting the problems.”

Weeding out manipulators and egoists: U of T researcher's new personality model could help employers in the hiring process

ullahnor — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 22:38:41 +0000

Weeding out manipulators and egoists: U of T researcher's new personality model could help employers in the hiring process

ullahnor Thu, 01/12/2017 - 17:38

Cutline

A new personality trait model co-developed by Associate Professor Brian Connelly could help organizations save money by improving the hiring process and in evaluating employee performance (photo by Ken Jones)

Don Campbell

Author legacy

Don Campbell

Topic

Global Lens

Employment

Management

Human Resources & Equity

UTSC

Personality

A new model for identifying personality traits may help organizations save money by improving the hiring process, and it could also help in evaluating employee performance.

The model, developed by Brian Connelly, an associate professor of management at U of T Scarborough, is unique in that it contrasts personality as seen by an individual versus how their personality is seen by others. The model is called Trait-Reputation-Identity (TRI).

“If someone believes they are very outgoing or more friendly than they actually are based on peer assessment, that’s important information to have about that person,” says Connelly, who recently became a Canada Research Chair.

U of T has one of the world's best graduate employability outcomes

ullahnor — Thu, 24 Nov 2016 17:27:46 +0000

U of T has one of the world's best graduate employability outcomes

ullahnor Thu, 11/24/2016 - 12:27

Cutline

QS says U of T students have among the best graduate employability outcomes in the world

Topic

Students who graduate from the University of Toronto not only learn from some of the top minds in the world, they also have one of the best graduate employability outcomes in the world, says the QS Graduate Employability Rankings.

U of T was the top-ranked Canadian university and placed 19th globally out of 300 top universities surveyed. Among public universities, it ranked third in North America and 13th globally.

“We’re pleased to see our ranking results continue to demonstrate U of T’s excellent track record for graduate outcomes and employment,” said Cheryl Regehr, U of T’s vice-president and provost.

QS said that the ranking incorporates the views of employers through a global survey, as well as alumni outcomes, employment rates, industry partnerships and student-employer connections.

“The ranking aims to help prospective students identify institutions with a strong commitment to and outstanding outcomes on graduate employability,” QS said.

There was also a notably strong performance for STEM-focused institutions in the rankings, QS found. American universities fared well with Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the top two positions. England, China, France and Australia also had institutions in the top 10.

Other Canadian universities in the top 50 included: Waterloo (22nd), McGill (28th), and UBC (41st).

The QS findings mirror the results of the Times Higher Education (THE) – Global Employability University Ranking that placed U of T first among Canadian universities, 14th in the world and sixth among North American public universities. The THE ranking combines the results of two online survey panels with approximately 6,000 respondents in total.

Read ranking results from U.S. News & World Report

Read U of T in fourth spot in 2016 National Taiwan University Ranking

Read U of T scored 22nd in THE's world university rankings

Read about the overall QS ranking

Millions of Canadians could lose jobs to automation, U of T's Mowat Centre reports

Romi Levine — Tue, 22 Nov 2016 19:47:10 +0000

Millions of Canadians could lose jobs to automation, U of T's Mowat Centre reports

Romi Levine Tue, 11/22/2016 - 14:47

Cutline

An automated sorting area at a distribution centre in England (photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

Global Lens

Mowat Centre

School of Public Policy & Governance

Subheadline

In the next 10 to 15 years, between 1.5 million to 7.5 million jobs in Canada could be at risk, affecting even lawyers, doctors and engineers

As technology advances, occupations from truck drivers to lawyers are at risk of becoming at least partly automated, bringing about higher unemployment and more temporary workers.

A report released today by the Mowat Centre says that, over the next two decades, millions of Canadians could be out of jobs. The Centre is part of the University of Toronto’s School of Public Policy & Governance.

Read Huffington Post story on the report

U of T News spoke with Sunil Johal, one of the authors of the report, about how Canada can adapt social policies to deal with dramatic shifts in the job market.

Is the rise of precarious work a symptom of an economic downturn or are there other factors?

I think there’s more to it than business cycles at this point. We’re seeing longer-term trends around precarious employment and non-standard work increasing over 20-year periods now. That’s something that outlives a three-to-four year economic downturn.

The main difference now from 20 to 25 years ago is the technological element to this. I think we’re seeing the rise of automation, robotics, artificial intelligence, the gig economy – all of these things together are culminating in a labour market that is far more precarious, far more task-based and in many cases, far more job-free.

How will automation affect Canadian workers?

The broader impacts of automation are yet to be seen. Companies are still figuring out how to leverage this new technology in a way that’s to their benefit that may impact jobs in a negative way.

We looked at a number of studies that have examined what potential job losses could look like in Canada. It’s a fairly broad range, but at the low end you’re looking at 1.5 million jobs in Canada and at the high end, you’re looking at about 7.5 million jobs that could be at risk of automation. That is a big number but, even if you take the low end of that, over the next 10-15 years that’s a lot of people.

The labour market in Canada right now is roughly 18 million.

That’s a game changer. We talk in the report about the fact that in the global financial crisis, Canada lost roughly 400,000 jobs. We’re talking double, triple or quadruple that number at the low end of these estimates.

Do the federal or provincial governments have policies in place to support workers at risk of losing their jobs to automation?

No, the social infrastructure is not in place right now for this type of major change to our economy. We can even argue that in the status quo current state of play in Canada, for many people, programs like employment insurance, the health care system and childcare are insufficient today. If they get worse in the labour market in the next five to 15 years, absent significant changes, those programs are not sufficient to meet the needs of Canadians in terms of coverage, quality of coverage and fundamentally, how they’re designed.

Are there examples of good social policy that Canada can learn from?

We set out a number of recommendations and options in terms of what governments might want to think about to modernize our social infrastructure.

One of the interesting ones was Denmark’s model of labour market training and support. They have a model called the “flexicurity” model – providing both flexibility and security to workers.

It’s much easier for Danish companies to hire and fire people – up to 25 per cent of Danes in the private sector switch jobs every year. There are significant levels of income replacement for unemployed workers – up to 90 per cent income replacement for workers and much higher levels of investment in training and skill support than we see in Canada.

In a world where more disruptions are happening more quickly, we would argue the Danish model is much more nimble and supportive and much more in-tune with the 21st century labour market than Canada’s model, which you could characterize as a very good model in the 1960s but not such a good model in 2016.

As we saw in the U.S. election, election cycles mean politicians can attempt to back-track on policies. What assurance do we have that long-term policies will stay in place to support at-risk workers?

The one thing that’s happening with technology that makes me optimistic that we can actually see changes – that there is a policy window for governments to do something about this – is the fact that technological disruption is not just going to be impacting those at the low-end of the income scale.

We’re going to see doctors, lawyers, engineers – all kinds of white collar professionals potentially see their job impacted in some way by these changes. That gives a much broader constituency of support for the necessary investments and program adjustments that’ll be needed in the coming years.

Today’s ‘job churn’ is a symptom of Canada’s stagnant economy, says U of T expert

Romi Levine — Mon, 31 Oct 2016 13:45:51 +0000

Today’s ‘job churn’ is a symptom of Canada’s stagnant economy, says U of T expert

Romi Levine Mon, 10/31/2016 - 09:45

Cutline

Protest against precarious jobs in Ireland (photo by Ana Rey via Flickr)

Romi Levine

Author legacy

Romi Levine

Topic

City & Culture

Faculty of Arts & Science

Canada’s stagnant growth is taking a toll on the job market.

After the Bank of Canada downgraded the country’s economic outlook, Finance Minister Bill Morneau told a Liberal Party meeting that temporary, short-term work is the new normal, especially for young people.

“How do we train and retrain people as they move from job to job to job? Because it’s going to happen. We have to accept that,” Morneau said during a question-and-answer session at the meeting last week. The comments almost immediately received backlash from many young Canadians who believe the government isn’t doing enough to support them.

Professor Rafael Gomez, director of the University of Toronto’s Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources in the Faculty of Arts & Science, says the trend toward precarious work is nothing new.

He spoke with U of T News about how the economy affects the labour market, and what the federal and provincial governments can do to support vulnerable workers.

Has there really been a dramatic shift in Canada’s labour force?

You have to be careful because what people perceive and what the data we have show – sometimes they’re different things. And the Labour Force Survey picks up some of this but not all. But if you just look at the number of people in the standard employment relationship, it has not budged in 18 to 20 years. If you look at the late '90s and compare it to today, it’s about the same proportion of workers who have full-time, permanent jobs in the labour market.

Where is this sense of insecurity coming from? What has increased is the proportion of young people in non-standard jobs, which is everything else but a full-time permanent job. If you break that down a little bit more – and the Labour Force Survey does this a little bit – 70 per cent of people say it’s a voluntary choice. That means 30 per cent of a 25 per cent pie is what we could consider to be in the precarious or more vulnerable state.

What’s behind the increase?

The problem, I think, is that there isn’t a very dynamic and fast-growing economy, which underpins growth in the labour market. When we’re in a stagnant, low-growth environment, it’s hard if you lose a job to get another one. If you’re a new labour market entrant of any kind – that would mean you’re an immigrant, someone who’s lost a job or someone who’s coming out of school looking for a job – it’s difficult to get your foot in the door because there isn’t natural growth. New positions don’t open up.

Has this happened before in Canada?

The recession of the early '80s was far worse on young people. It scarred an entire generation. There’s labour economic analysis that’s been done of cohorts who enter the labour market in particularly bad economic circumstances. You can see the profile of people who enter the labour market during a deep downturn – and those folks tend to have lower earnings throughout their career.

In terms of their attitude and expectations about work and mobility, they’re much diminished.

We’re not really experiencing a recession. It’s a period of more stagnant and low growth, which is different.

What can the federal government do to support precarious workers?

One of the things the government can do is encourage the ability for the labour market to regulate itself by making it easier for workers to join trade unions and to make sectorial arrangements. There are a few sectors in Canada that provide coverage for an entire group of workers. For example, cultural industries have sectorial agreements, meaning that if you work in film or television in Canada no matter where and on which work site – even if the job is temporary – you’re still captured by the same rights a unionized worker would have in a GM plant.

These sectorial agreements, not necessarily tied to a workplace, are effective mechanisms. We’ve seen it in the data we’ve analyzed. They bring the wage up, and they ensure benefits are paid.

Was Morneau’s speech sending the wrong message to employers?

You have low growth, not generating new jobs – that’s the reality of the labour market today. That part was true. It should’ve been buttressed with “but we need to ensure people are not being exploited and taken advantage of because they need to get their foot in the door.” This is something the government should be watching for and not allowing to happen.

What is the Ontario government doing to tackle the “job churn”?

Ninety per cent of workers are covered by provincial labour laws, labour standards and employment laws so the real action is at the provincial level. The Ontario government is undertaking a major review of its labour laws, which pertain to union management relations, and employment standards, which are for everyone else who is not covered by an agreement. The province is exploring different ways and models, especially to help vulnerable workers.

Employment

U of T report explores workers’ experience in the global gig economy

Read the report

Caregiver work needs to be treated like a globally traded commodity: U of T study

U of T staff, faculty bring their kids to work

Success isn't a straight line: U of T alumna reflects on life after graduation

See a schedule of the Next Steps conference

U of T has one of the world's best graduate employability outcomes

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Asian job applicants face tougher odds: U of T researchers part of joint study on interview callback rates

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Weeding out manipulators and egoists: U of T researcher's new personality model could help employers in the hiring process

Read more about Connelly

U of T has one of the world's best graduate employability outcomes

Read ranking results from U.S. News & World Report

Read U of T in fourth spot in 2016 National Taiwan University Ranking

Read U of T scored 22nd in THE's world university rankings

Read about the overall QS ranking

Millions of Canadians could lose jobs to automation, U of T's Mowat Centre reports

Read Huffington Post story on the report

Today’s ‘job churn’ is a symptom of Canada’s stagnant economy, says U of T expert