Ontario employers cashing in on temporary workers

Since, I've posted & blogged these kinds of news stories quite a few times (Aug, Sept), I don't have much to say here.

When people tell me that take a temporary / contract job & it will turn into a permanent job later (I don't know how they know that), my answer is that there's a high chance that the job won't turn into a permanent one. After all, what incentive the company has to hire a worker, on a permanent basis, & pay for his/her health insurance & pension expenses, when the same worker can be kept on a temporary basis, indefinitely, & still get the job done, without any pension & benefits expenses for the company.

Another question I have for people who advocate "networking" is why are there 340,000 temp workers & there is a 33% increase in temporary workers, in the past decade (2004 - 2014), when all these people could've done "networking" to get a permanent job. Are all these people stupid, too timid, or unsocial to not know how to network? Networking is useless if you don't have influential family members or close friends in your circle, who are willing to bat for you.

I do see that there is an explosion in the Employment agencies in Ontario, & all over Canada, & the amount of money in this industry is obscene. With the commissions these employment agencies pay out to their workers, 6-figure salaries are common. People who are earning these 6-figure salaries have neither worked for years in the industry or have multiple relevant degrees & designations. That's why, I also see CAs & MBAs working in employment agencies now, because there's far more money in this industry than they will ever earn anywhere else.

But all this money is being earned by trampling on the workers' & human rights of thousands of other individuals. Many people choose the path of employment agencies only when they don't have any other option of getting a job. They all hope to get a permanent job one day. But, the way the contracts are structured, companies are also discouraged to hire temp & contract workers on a permanent basis. For instance, the one-time fees a company has to pay to hire a worker from a temp agency on a permanent basis are hefty.

All in all, everyone is making money & earning huge benefits at the expense of the small guy who has no rights. I thought that only happened in developing countries where rich control everything & the poor, small guy is pushed around.
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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/10/ontario-employers-cashing-in-on-temporary-workers.html

For more than 5 years, 61-year-old Angel Reyes has woken up 5 days a week at 3 a.m. & braced himself for 8 hours of hauling garbage at a Toronto recycling plant.

The university-educated refugee is the longest-serving worker on the floor, hired through a temp agency more than half a decade ago.

Half a decade &, technically, still a temp.

Half a decade earning minimum wage, never having seen a raise.

Half a decade, & still paid less per hour than his permanent colleagues for doing the same job.

Half a decade, & still no benefits.

Half a decade, & still no obligation for his employer to hire him permanently.

“If hell exists, that is hell,” says Reyes, a father of 3 who came to Canada in 1993 after he was kidnapped & imprisoned in El Salvador for — ironically — lobbying for workers’ rights.

Under Ontario’s antiquated Employment Standards Act, which is currently under review, there is no limit on how long a company can employ a worker as temporary before giving him or her a permanent job.

There is nothing to stop employers from paying temp workers less than their permanent counterparts, nothing to prevent them from hiring their entire workforce on a “temporary” basis if they so choose.

“If the employer knows that they can hire you & they don’t have to give you benefits, they don’t have to give you a pension, they can hire you for a lot less, there’s no incentive for them to hire permanently. Why would they?” says Deena Ladd, who heads the Toronto-based labour rights group the Workers’ Action Centre.

“The biggest issue is the lack of respect & dignity in (temporary) work. Nobody is seeing them for who they are & the work that they’re doing. They are completely invisible.”

In Toronto, their ranks are growing, with temporary workers outpacing permanent ones at twice the rate, their wages significantly lower.

Over the past decade, there has been a 33% increase in the number of temporary workers in Toronto, to more than 340,000 in 2014 from 256,000 in 2004, according to Statistics Canada. Industries such as food manufacturing, transportation & health care saw some of the biggest jumps.

By contrast, the number of permanent employees increased by just 12% over the same period.

Not all temporary workers are hired through agencies; many are hired directly on fixed-term contracts. Statistics Canada figures don’t differentiate between temp agency workers & direct hires.

Still, Ontario’s temp agency industry is flourishing. The province’s employment services sector earned $5.7 billion in revenue in 2012, a near 72% jump from 2002. Temporary agencies account for an estimated 60% of that industry’s total revenue.

Temp agencies are responsible for paying a worker their wages, which they bill the company for, & also take care of statutory entitlements such as Canada Pension Plan, injury pay & vacation pay. The agencies charge their client companies a fee for each assignment to cover all of these costs.

The hourly rate paid to the temp agency for an assignment can be as much as double the worker’s wage. Temp agencies are not required under the Employment Standards Act to tell workers how much they are charging the company per hour to employ them.

Toronto resident Antoinette Schokman-De Zilva, 66, a retired former executive assistant who worked numerous placements through temp agencies, says she was shocked to discover on one assignment that the company was paying the temp agency almost double her hourly wage.

“If I’m paid $20 an hour, they’re charging $45 from the company,” she says.

For some employers, temp agencies help match them with high-level, specialized workers.

But for many others, using temp agencies is part of what the action centre’s Ladd calls a “cheap wage strategy” to keep costs low & responsibilities, such as health benefits & pensions, to a minimum.

Figures provided to the Star by Statistics Canada show that the median wage of a temporary worker in Toronto is just $15 an hour, while permanent employees make $22.40 — a pay gap of 33%.

The gap is even wider for male temps in non-unionized workplaces, who make a median hourly wage of just $13.50. Their permanent counterparts make 40% more, at $22.50 an hour.

Ontario has made some recent strides toward reform, such as giving workers the right to receive public holiday pay & one weeks’ termination notice. But other countries have done more to protect temporary workers from unequal pay & long-term temp work.

In the U.K., temp workers are entitled to receive the same pay as permanent workers in equivalent positions after 3 months on the job.

In Italy, temporary positions automatically become permanent after 36 months in the same assignment.

And in Australia, employers who hire temps must pay them a 15% to 25% premium on their hourly wage in recognition that such workers rarely receive benefits.

But while Ontario’s Employment Standards Act mandates pay equity between men & women, there are no provisions to protect workers from pay discrimination based on their temporary employment status.

Reyes, for example, says permanent employees at his plant make more than him when they start, plus receive benefits, while he still earns minimum wage after more than 5 years on the job as a temp. The only time his salary increased was when the government raised the minimum wage to $11 an hour.
...

The repercussions of endless temp agency work for some of the province’s most vulnerable workers are more than financial.

A 2013 study by the Toronto-based Institute for Work & Health, which conducted interviews with more than 60 low-wage temp agency workers, industry experts & employers in Ontario, concluded that poor oversight & intense competition between agencies put temporary workers at greater risk of work injury than their permanent counterparts.

Ellen MacEachen, the report’s lead author, says workers told her they felt powerless to complain about poor work conditions because they knew they were replaceable & feared losing even poorly-paid jobs.

“Workers who have job insecurity will take care to protect their jobs, & that can often mean trying not to complain about anything,” she says.

Since the Workplace Safety & Insurance Act recognizes temp agencies as the sole employer of their workers, companies can also keep a clean WSIB record if temp agency workers are injured on the job.

“No one is looking out for them,” says the action centre’s Ladd. “You have a perfect environment for a complete deterioration of health & safety, wages, & working conditions.”

Mary McIninch, director of government relations at the Association of Canadian Search, Employment & Staffing Services, which represents more than 1,000 employment agencies including temps, says her members actively maintain a voluntary code of ethics. She describes them as “the most reputable, credible firms in the industry.”

The association has supported some government measures to give temp workers rights, McIninch says, but adds it would oppose reforms like pay parity.

She says “a strong majority” of her members place workers in highly paid positions, & that workers are compensated according to skill & experience.

“We have so many positive testimonials from new Canadians & students,” she told the Star, calling the example of Angel Reyes “not representative of the majority of workers in the industry.”

“I think if that were representative of even a strong minority, I doubt very much that as many individuals that we see — over 300,000 across the country — would continue to use our members’ services,” she adds.

But former temp worker Schokman-De Zilva, who immigrated to Toronto from Sri Lanka in 1989, says she only turned to agency jobs when permanent ones were not available, hoping they would lead to stable employment.

They never did.

“They just threw the contract in my face when I protested,” she says. “And that was it.”
Despite the recent government reforms, people like Reyes are still falling through the cracks.
For him, life at a drafty, dust-filled recycling plant may not be glamorous, but a job is a job.
...


Proposed solutions

A recent report by the Workers’ Action Centre makes a number of recommendations to tackle the widening disparity between permanent employees & temporary agency workers. These include:

• Requiring companies to pay temps the same wages & benefits as permanent staff in equivalent positions.

• Requiring temporary agencies to tell workers how much they are charging a company per hour for an assignment.

• Instituting a six-month limit on temporary assignments, after which temps must be directly hired by the company.

• Scrapping a provision that allows temp agencies to charge companies a fee if they give temps permanent jobs in the first 6 months of work.

• Limiting how many workers in a single company can be temporary agency employees (no more than 20%).

'Wild West' scheduling holds millions of Ontario workers hostage

News stories like these are not so obvious to a majority of people in Canada & pretty much none abroad. The public thinks that since I am doing great in a permanent, full time position, everyone else must be in the same boat. We don't realize how the proverbial graph of labour conditions in US & Canada has consistently being going down for the past decade.

Employment is rising fast in retail industry in Canada. Search jobs in any one of the hundreds of job search websites & apps & you will definitely come across some retail sector jobs, regardless of what position you are searching for. However, most retailers are operating in a cut-throat market, & hence, try to be efficient by cutting down on their labour costs.

That happens despite some of the owners of the retail sectors becoming filthy rich & continuously becoming rich, for example, Walton family of Wal-Mart, Sobey family of Sobeys, Weston family of Loblaws etc.

These retailers try to find any loophole which can benefit them. For example, the article mentions that retailers hire new part-time staff, when the sales in store increases, instead of offering those extra hours to their existing staff. It doesn't provide any reason, but the reason retailers do that is because if existing part-timers are offered those extra hours & their hours get past the minimum threshold at which retailers are obliged to give those part-timers medical & dental benefits, then it will cost those retailers even more. So, retailers hire new staff, & this way keeping the hours of all part-timers below the minimum threshold of benefits.

People, who don't know what retailers do, very easily say that take a job at a store. They don't realize how hard life would become once you get in that cycle. As the article mentions, you won't even have the time to take a second job to cover your expenses, since erratic scheduling will demand your full schedule to be opened. You might be required to work at the store at any time.

But then, can we blame the retailers for this?

After all, as I said above, they are operating in a cut-throat environment & they need to cut costs wherever they can. Labour costs are a big chunk of total operating expenses. A majority of consumers demand lowest prices possible. They can easily do comparison shopping through websites, flyers, apps etc. & look for the cheapest price possible for the same product. There is no such thing as customer loyalty.

Most consumers, of course, are looking for lowest prices because they themselves are living on meagre wages. They don't have extra cash lying around to splurge on even organic & healthy food (which is generally more expensive than regular, non-organic food), forget then that they will spend extra on general products.

To keep prices so low, for example, like Wal-Mart, stores need to cut costs as much as they can. Of course, that means using technology as much as they can, for example, use of self-checking kiosks. Technology, though, take away jobs even from those part-timers. So technology makes more people unemployed.

Root of the problem lies at the mentality of owners that accumulation of wealth at the top is good. Owners think it is their entitled birth-right to accumulate as much wealth as they can. Rich elites, in general, are looking forward to keep hoarding money in their bank accounts. They cut costs brutally in their businesses; whatever industry they are in. Their workers are paid meagre wages. Those workers then spend their salaries very carefully. The rich owners also try to avoid, as much as they legally can, to pay for benefits; vacations, health, pensions etc. Workers then are required to buy those benefits & save for their pensions themselves ... from their already meagre wages.

Government, on the other hand, keep cutting social services & health benefits. I remember a decade ago that eye tests in Ontario were free for all every 2 years. Now, they are free only for diabetics, children & seniors. Adults have to pay for their eyes to be checked. Governments are cutting social services & health benefits because they don't have enough money in their public coffers (at least that's what the government says). They don't have enough money because rich business & political elites find ingenious ways to dodge taxes.

So, the rich business elites try to save big in their business operations through cutting wages, hiring more part-timers, cutting benefits etc. & then also save money by not paying their fair share of the taxes, which will, at least, help provide social services for those same poor workers whose wages & benefits they are cutting. So, the rich business elites have both their hands & the head in the money pot.

And we thought that this would be done by some unscrupulous, corrupt, unethical businessmen in the developing world !!!
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http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/05/03/outdated-employment-standards-act-holding-millions-of-ontario-workers-hostage.html

...
In Ontario, employers don’t have to provide workers with their schedule in advance.

There are no penalties for cancelling an employee’s shift even an hour before it’s due to start.

There is no obligation to guarantee part-time workers a certain number of hours.

There is no law preventing more part-time workers from being hired before offering existing employees more hours.

There is nothing that saves part-time workers from being paid less than full-time workers — even when they do the same job.

Many low-wage workers desperately need to take on second jobs but can’t, because employers expect full-time availability from their part-time employees.

Experts call erratic work scheduling the “Wild West” of employment standards, a practice that causes havoc in the lives of millions of Ontario workers but is almost completely ignored by provincial law.

The result in many industries is a “brutal combination” of unpredictable schedules, insufficient hours & poor wages, says Deena Ladd, who heads the Workers’ Action Centre, a Toronto-based labour rights advocacy group.

Now, Ontario’s so-called “precariously employed” are demanding change on these issues, as Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government embarks on a review of employment & labour laws that is expected to conclude in August 2016.

“It’s just incomprehensible that we’re asking people in our province today to try to manage their lives under these kinds of conditions,” says Kendra Coulter, a professor of labour studies at Brock University.

So-called flexible schedules are often welcomed by employees who want greater control over their work-life balance. But for the growing number of people in low-wage part-time positions, “flexibility” provides little in the way of control or balance.

41% of work in Ontario is now done outside a full-time, permanent relationship with a single employer.
...

Expecting full-time availability from part-time employees, the action centre’s Ladd says, makes it difficult for many low-wage workers to take on much-needed second jobs.
...

Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, last reviewed in 2000, is almost completely silent on the subject of scheduling, containing just one provision to protect workers.

The “three hour rule” forces bosses to give their employees 3 hours of pay if they arrive at work only to have their shifts abruptly shortened or cancelled. The rule does not apply to workers who are regularly scheduled to work less than 3 hours, which labour activists say is increasingly common.

Beyond that, employers have no responsibility to provide workers with a predictable schedule.
...

Erratic scheduling is most common in booming sectors such as retail, where jobs tend to be low-wage & non-unionized.

In Toronto alone, the number of people employed in retail has grown by 34% over the past 15 years, to more than 300,000 in 2014 from just under 227,000 in 1999.

Angelo DiCaro, Unifor’s lead researcher on the retail sector ..., says negotiating scheduling rights for union members is tough since there are no province-wide standards.

Flexible scheduling is popular with employers because it allows companies to spend less on payroll when sales slow down. Managers are often evaluated based on their success.

“It’s a pure efficiency argument from the retailers’ viewpoint,” explains Joseph Milner, a professor at Rotman School of Management. “The more flexible you can get your resources — your human resources, in this case — the more you would expect to get efficiencies.”

In addition to keeping wages low, hiring a large pool of part-time employees who work limited hours minimizes employers’ obligation to pay benefits such as medical & dental. Even in unionized settings, workers must often work a certain number of hours to be eligible for such entitlements.

Mary Gellatly of Parkdale Community Legal Services argues this “shifts what’s traditionally been the cost of doing business onto workers, especially low-wage precarious workers who can least afford it.”

“The reality is that at this point (scheduling) is a ‘Wild West’ when it comes to employment standards,” adds Brock University’s Coulter, who calls the reforms proposed by the Workers’ Action Centre “thoughtful, comprehensive & achievable.”

She also points out that not all employers take advantage of loose rules.

Costco Canada, for example, guarantees its full-time staff 40 hours a week, & its part-timers 25 hours. Schedules are posted at least 1 week in advance, & both full-time & part-time employees are entitled to health benefits.

The upshot, says Ross Hunt, the company’s vice-president of human resources, is one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the industry — 12%, compared with the retail average of about 21%.

“It gives (workers) a better quality of life. And if they’re stable & they stay with us, it’s great for us, too,” he told the Star in an interview.

But the political push for province-wide standards has so far lagged. In the US, the proposed federal Schedules that Work Act sets out much stronger protections, including mandatory two-week scheduling notice for many low-wage sectors.

The Act will face tough passage through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, but that hasn’t stopped San Francisco from enacting game-changing municipal legislation with similar provisions, including providing retail workers with two weeks’ notice of their schedules.

“I think we’re way behind many jurisdictions in the US where they’re trying to put a halt to the unfettered growth of just-in-time scheduling,” says Parkdale’s Gellatly.

But campaigners say the Ontario government’s current review of the Employment Standards Act is a golden opportunity to fix what the action centre’s Ladd calls a “massive, gaping hole” in the province’s laws.


Proposed solutions

A recent report by the Workers’ Action Centre on precarious work in Ontario recommends reforming the Employment Standards Act to:

• Require two weeks’ advance posting of work schedules

• Give employees the right to one hour’s pay if their schedule is changed with less than a week’s notice, & 4 hours’ pay if less than 24 hours’ notice

• Mandate minimum three-hour shifts for all workers

• Require employers to give existing part-time & casual employees preference for available hours before hiring additional workers

• Give workers protection from reprisal when requesting schedule changes

• Mandate equal pay for equal work, regardless of part-time or full-time status


BY THE NUMBERS

40%: Pay difference per hour between part-time & full-time workers in Ontario

$11: Median wage for a Toronto grocery store worker in 2014

60%: Grocery store workers in Toronto who are not unionized

88%: Retail workers in Toronto who are not unionized

87%: Retail workers in Ontario who are not unionized

'Precarious employment' still rising in Toronto & Hamilton

Since, I've written some blog posts on employment situation in Toronto, I won't write a long post again, except, highlighting a few stats from this article.

- precarious employment includes people in temp & contract work, along with those with uncertain work schedules, irregular earnings, inconsistent hours of work or jobs without benefits, & also includes some self-employed people as precarious, only if they have irregular, unpredictable work

- almost half (44%) of adults in Toronto & Hamilton are in precarious employment

- once someone is in precarious employment, chances are high that they are going to be in trapped in it

- workers in precarious employment are almost twice as likely to report worse mental health than those in secure positions

- visible minorities are far more likely to be working in unstable jobs

- “Not only has work become less secure for racialized workers, but also the pay has actually decreased for them,” said Wayne Lewchuk, McMaster professor of labour studies & economics

- precarious employment has grown almost twice as fast as standard employment since 1997

- more men are landing in precarious employment, while white women are the only ones who are getting more secure employment & less precarious employment

- In Toronto, only 45.7% of respondents are now holding permanent full-time jobs with benefits

- 47% of Canadian firms in a recent Deloitte poll said they plan to increase the use of “contingent, outsourced, contract or part-time” workers in the next 3 to 5 years
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/jobs/precarious-employment-still-rising-in-toronto-and-hamilton/article24531959/

Precarious employment is becoming more prevalent in Canada’s largest city, a shift that is putting financial strain & emotional stress on households.

44% of adults in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton Area work in jobs that have some degree of insecurity, a study ... says. That share, which includes people working through temp agencies, freelancers & contract workers, is greater than the last time the survey was conducted in 2011, when it was 41%.

The new study is based on a survey of 4,193 people & produced by United Way Toronto & McMaster University.

The changing nature of work carries a broad impact. For many workers, unstable employment means less access to training & opportunities to get ahead, fewer benefits, more trouble managing finances & more anxiety. The effect spills into family & home life too, making it difficult to pay for school trips & plan any activities ... .

The study also looked at whether people are able to climb out of insecure employment. “One of the biggest ‘ah has’ for us was that no, in fact – if you are in precarious employment, there’s a very good chance you’re going to become trapped in it,” said Susan McIsaac, president & CEO of United Way Toronto. This is the case not just for those in low-income work, but “for many people in the middle class, this was a huge challenge in being able to maintain their middle-class status.”

Its definition includes people in temp & contract work, along with those with uncertain work schedules, irregular earnings, inconsistent hours of work or jobs without benefits. It counts some self-employed people as precarious, only if they have irregular, unpredictable work.

That’s the case for Anna Withrow. She has been largely self-employed since 2001, as a communications & marketing consultant, & says erratic earnings have wreaked havoc with her life.

“Cash flow has been the biggest crippling thing,” said Ms. Withrow, 45, who lives in Toronto. Her income has ranged from $24,000 to about $77,000, with no income at all in some months, & she has worked anywhere between 40 & 100 hours per week.

The impact has been both financial – a run-up in debts, making it difficult to pay the mortgage & finish renovations – & physical too, leading to acute stress, a less nutritious diet & weight gain. “If the right position came along, I would take it tomorrow.”

Workers in precarious jobs are almost twice as likely to report worse mental health than those in secure positions, the survey shows. Nearly half of them say they often don’t know their work schedules at least a week in advance. Scheduling uncertainty makes it hard to find child care.

Visible minorities are far more likely to be working in unstable jobs.

“Not only has work become less secure for racialized workers, but also the pay has actually decreased for them,” said Wayne Lewchuk, McMaster professor of labour studies and economics.

The study comes as the provincial government is reviewing its employment & labour laws, noting that non-standard work has grown almost twice as fast as standard employment since 1997.

By gender, a growing share of men are landing in precarious employment, he noted, likely a result of fewer factory jobs, while white women “are the only group in the study who saw an increase in secure employment & a decrease in precarious employment.”

The longer-term trend points to more insecure employment, said Prof. Lewchuk. “Each time there’s a recovery, the level of security is a little bit lower than the previous boom. I think this is because the competitive pressures are greater – firms are looking to cut costs … technology has changed, & there’s an infrastructure where they can go to temp agencies, & get not just unskilled workers, but they can get CEOs now.”

The results show almost six in 10 workers hold some form of secure employment — with 48% in permanent, full-time jobs that pay some benefits, & 8% permanent, part-time employees. This share has slightly fallen. Meanwhile, the portion of people in the least secure type of work, dubbed “precarious,” grew to 28.5% last year from 25.9% 3 years earlier.

In the city of Toronto, less than half, or 45.7%, of respondents are now holding permanent full-time jobs with benefits.

A debate has emerged over precarious employment – how it’s defined & what the long-term trends are. One analysis, by Toronto-Dominion Bank in March, found precarious employment levels in Canada are higher than before the recession, though they’re currently declining. It said this type of work often tracks business cycles, & that precarious employment will remain “elevated” over the next 2 years.

A 2013 paper by the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity found a growing number of workers in Toronto are employed in temporary, part-time, low-paying positions in routine-service industries.

Almost half, or 47%, of Canadian firms in a recent Deloitte poll said they plan to increase the use of “contingent, outsourced, contract or part-time” workers in the next 3 to 5 years, a strategy the consulting firm says helps give firms the ability to scale up or down as business needs fluctuate.

In a global report ..., the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development said workers on temp contracts in Canada have “particularly low annual earnings” & that the annual median earnings of the self employed are also “considerably lower” compared with salaried workers.

...

The paper recommends a range of measures, including the need for ensuring all workers have access to skills & work training, to developing – & sharing – the business case for secure employment. At the federal level, it called for better labour market information & for updating employment insurance rules to better fit with today’s jobs market.

Half of Toronto-area workers have fallen into 'precarious employment'

Although, this is a good informative piece & confirms my thinking that job situation in Canada keeps going downhill, I still come across people who work in career offices (employment agencies, government human resources centers, & university career offices) who think completely different, i.e. that there's nothing wrong with labour market of Canada & everything is on the up.

Those people have usually one suggestion: networking. Do networking.

I'm dumbfounded with that suggestion because I understand that networking is very important to have access to that hidden job market but then are all these millions of job seekers in Toronto & all over Canada are socially inept people that they aren't / can't network?

I can accept that perhaps, I am not the greatest person to make friends with people & network easily. But I can't accept that all these millions of people are similar to me on the social gauge. So, if they are not like me & most of them must be much more social than me, then why are they having problems landing a secure, permanent, good-paying job?

Part of my answer goes back to my previous blog post (of Robocops coming to Dubai by 2017) that with the help of automation & robotics, the bar of secure & permanent jobs in every category & profession is constantly rising. Although, the piece says that trends of changes in labour market cannot be predicted & can come suddenly, I say that they are actually predictable & can be seen from miles afar. For instance, hotel staff jobs will be going away within the next 10-20 years, thanks to the introduction of robot staff at Henn na hotel in Japan. Or the jobs of taxi drivers, truck drivers & chauffeurs are already in jeopardy, thanks to self-driving trucks, cars, & even Uber.

Although, the piece talks about politicians & institution leaders getting their heads together & make better policies in the areas of labour relations, employment, pay structures etc., I'd say that that's a useless suggestion.

We know politicians are controlled by rich business elites. Rich business elites didn't become rich by giving away money to poor through better pay structure, providing training & development, & hiring humans, instead of not automating their jobs. A business person will always look for efficiency & cost-cutting measures, & automating a job achieves both objectives.

Networking is useless if there are no influential people in your network to pull you in the upper echelons of a business or an organization. Because if you are a young individual & not at the top of the organization, & if there's no scope of you climbing higher quickly, even if you starts at the bottom of the organizational hierarchy, then your permanent job is already at jeopardy. You may get hired on contract or temporary basis later on in life, but not permanent. At that point in your life, you won't have time to go back to school to re-educate yourself & re-orient your ship of life.

Is this labour market situation unique to Canada where more & more people are falling into precarious employment? Sort of. Because, Canadian industries are mostly focused on fossil fuels & minerals extractions. Governments cannot do much since companies do come in Canada with the help of tax subsidies but then as soon as they realize their tax advantages, they go back to a low-cost area. Governments cannot intervene heavily since that would amount to dictatorship & governments' undue influences. That would go against the free market mantra of the West.

This labour market situation of more people falling into precarious employment is same in US & Europe. Germany & France engineered the European Union to increase their own employment & labour market situation. But, it was at the detriment of other countries which could not export & had to import German & French products, which in the end, put a huge dent in their labour markets. After all, somebody's GDP must decrease so someone else's increases.

Root of the problem of these labour market problems is that Western governments always acted reactionary, instead of proactively, to where the world was moving. North American countries didn't market technical professions (those jobs are plentiful now with good salary prospects, but not enough job seekers) or they pushed for dismemberment of unions, even though, they are the ones to push for higher wages. North American countries didn't, & still aren't, pushing for green technologies, which can help hire more people in secure, permanent jobs.
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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/columnists/half-of-toronto-area-workers-have-fallen-into-precarious-employment-study/article9003680/

In just a few short decades Canada’s labour market has changed dramatically. The widely held belief that employment leads to economic security & social well-being has become out-of-step with an increasing number of people in today’s work force.

Research ... by McMaster University & United Way Toronto provides new insights into just how much the labour market in Southern Ontario has changed. Barely half of people working in the Greater Toronto & Hamilton areas have permanent, full-time jobs that provide benefits & stability. Everyone else is working in situations that are part-time, vulnerable or insecure in some way. This includes a growing number of temporary, contract & on-call positions. Jobs without benefits. Jobs with uncertain futures. This significant rise in precarious employment is a serious threat – not only to the collective prosperity of the region, but also to the social fabric of communities.

Beneath this finding is another surprise: precarious employment is hurting everyone. It’s found across all demographic groups, in every sector & across income levels that were previously immune. Having a middle-class income can now come with increased employment insecurity.

It is now common for many workers to piece together year-round, full-time hours by working multiple jobs. In addition, working conditions are more uncertain, as existing labour laws have not kept up with changing realities. Union membership is on the decline. Doors to opportunity are limited as opportunities for job training & development decline.

While we know that being precariously employed is worst when you’re living in low income, our research confirms this increasingly is an issue that affects people at every income level. Moreover, uncertainty about work is a major barrier for anyone planning for the future. People find it more difficult to chart a clear & stable path in their careers & are consequently delaying significant life plans, such as whether to start a family, because they feel insecure about their futures. Among parents, making plans, scheduling activities & spending time together as a family becomes much more difficult. The stress & pressure of being precariously employed is also more likely to lead to feelings of self doubt & anxiety.

Just as important, our study also found that job insecurity is about more than just poverty. Its impacts are far-reaching, affecting all parts of our lives, redefining how we contribute to our economy, give back to our community & interact with our families. Precarious work can make it more difficult to make ongoing volunteer commitments & donate to charities. Across all income levels, insecurity makes it less likely that people will have vital social networks, such as friends to talk to.

Trends that have caused nearly half of our work force to engage in insecure employment show no signs of slowing down. Among study respondents, even those who describe their current employment as permanent are aware that change can come suddenly & unexpectedly.

The question now is: How should we respond to this shifting climate? While the global nature of our economy can sometimes make it feel like change is beyond our control, policy paralysis is not an option. We have a variety of tools within our reach to effectively limit the spread of insecure employment & mitigate its negative effects.

The way forward is to confront these trends, assess how current labour market regulations & income security policies are supporting people in precarious employment, & explore options for making them more responsive. It’s time for a conversation that brings together the private sector, labour organizations, community groups & all levels of government in a discussion about how together we can mitigate the negative effects of precarious employment.

Raising incomes is an obvious & critical area of focus, but it is not enough. The reality that workers in precarious employment tend to exit & re-enter the labour market much more often than those in permanent employment requires a renewed look at basic employment standards & protections as well as revamped income security programs.

More attention also needs to be given to how we can best support human capital development so that our work force remains innovative & competitive. Training & education models with a life-long learning focus can help workers build the skills to continuously improve their employment prospects.

Family supports, such as early learning & child care, accessible recreation & settlement programs, & affordable housing are also keys to maintaining healthy households & building a stronger sense of community.

What we need today is a renewed public policy framework that will be supportive of those in precarious employment & responsive to the challenges associated with this shifting labour market. Given this reality, it’s crucial that we all work together, governments, employers, labour & other stakeholders, to identify common ground & advance a shared agenda for real & sustainable progress.


Susan McIsaac is president & CEO of United Way Toronto, Charlotte Yates, is dean at the faculty of social sciences at McMaster University.