Precarious work just as rampant in York Region as Toronto, report says

Fewer than half of workers in the region hold permanent, full-time jobs with benefits.

Thestar.com
April 13, 2016
By May Warren

Patrick McCrudden thinks about what will happen when his contract ends, “every single day.”

“The worst part is obviously the unknown and the stress level that comes with it,” said the 26-year-old.

“Quite frankly, I think that looking for work is the most stressful job in the world.”

Since graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brock University in 2011, McCrudden has worked a string of unpaid internships and temporary contracts.

He’s currently working as a marketing co-ordinator at the Markham Fair, but the position ends in August. He would love to stay and get something more permanent in advertising, but, like many workers in York Region, he always has to keep an eye out for other potential jobs.

A new report from the United Way and McMaster University finds fewer than half (48.9 per cent) of workers in York Region - including Markham, Richmond Hill and Vaughan - hold permanent, full-time jobs with benefits. The rest are working at jobs with some degree of precariousness, including temporary and contract positions and full-time jobs without benefits, or part-time posts.

The report builds on the same team’s groundbreaking 2013 and 2015 reports on precarious work, the most recent of which found fewer than half of workers in the GTA and Hamilton are in permanent, full-time jobs.

Lead researcher Wayne Lewchuk said the York Region report drives home the point that precarious work “is not just someone else’s problem.”

“This form of employment is found throughout the region, not just in pockets,” said the McMaster University professor.

“This is a problem for all of us. We all need to think seriously about the kinds of policies and the institutions that we want to put in place, from child care to training to pension plans, that reflect this new reality.”

The report also found that precarious workers in York Region, like those throughout the Greater Toronto Hamilton Area (GTHA), find child care a particular challenge.

Some people are unable to find child care because of fluctuating schedules and hours, while others are stuck in precarious jobs because they can’t get reliable child care.

“Finding child care is difficult across the entire sample in the whole GTHA, and for some reason it’s a little bit higher in York Region,” said Michelynn Lafleche, director of research, public policy and evaluation at the United Way and co-author of the report.

“It could be about the infrastructure of child care that’s available. It could be about the kinds of commute times that people face, it could be a whole range of things,” she added.

“What we do know is that when you can’t get child care, you can’t get work.”

The researchers also found that workers in York Region living in low-income and middle-income households reported more anxiety related to their employment situations than workers generally in the GTHA, although it’s a problem across the region.

“It’s not all about the money,” said Lafleche. “It’s as much about the insecurity and the lack of control over knowing when and how much you’re going to have to work.”

For precarious workers like McCrudden, who rents an apartment with his girlfriend, his lack of stability is also delaying major life milestones.

“I’d like to have a home, and I’d like to start a family,” he said. “I don’t want to be in my parents’ basement scrounging and stressing out about looking for work.”