Ten Ways of Seeing Precarious Employment

A look at Precarious employment in Canada, November 2005

Precarious employment is work with few public benefits such as pensions, and few benefits from the employer, such as extended health care. It is work with very little job security, low wages, lack of control, and high risks of ill-health.

This report, published in 2005, takes into account employment status in Canada — whether the work involves self-employment or work for wages; its form — temporary or permanent, part-time or full-time, and the context of the work, such as the occupation, the industry, and the city, province or region where it is located.

The report also considers social relations, such as gender and “race,” and at political and economic conditions. Women, immigrants and workers of colour have always been more likely than Canadian-born white males to do precarious work, but the balance of which groups do particular kinds of work is changing.