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Part-time work under the microscope

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A group of Southwestern Ontario businesses are banding together to address the province’s growing number of precarious jobs with a campaign that’s inspired at least one local executive director: Pillar Nonprofit Network’s Michelle Baldwin.

Baldwin also sits on the board of the Ontario Nonprofit Network, a member of the newly formed Better Way to Build the Economy Alliance. The advocacy group launched during an anti-poverty conference in Hamilton earlier this month and also counts Muskoka Brewery, Grosche International, and United Way Toronto and York Region among its first 24 members.

Online, participating employers are promoting the benefits of offering full-time work at higher minimum wages with perks such as paid sick time and flexible work schedules. They hope to inspire other Ontario businesses to offer the same, arguing that stable employees aren’t only happier and more productive at work, they also drive the larger provincial economy by spending disposable income in their spare time.

“I think that’s an important strategy,” Baldwin said, emphasizing the significance of including non-profit and for-profit voices in a discussion about creating secure, full-time jobs. “(If) we’re trying to create a healthier economy for Ontario, we need all employers to be embracing this notion of decent work.”

In London, an exodus of full-time work in the manufacturing sector during the 2008 recession left the city in an unemployment hole its only recently been climbing out of. But according to Joe Michalski, the associate academic dean at King’s University College, traditionally strong employment sectors in London such as education, health care, and social services have seen little or no growth since 2010.

“It even affects us at King’s, too,” he said. “To hire permanent faculty is a long-term, expensive investment, so we’re under the same kind of pressure to … possibly hire more part-timers.

“I’m not thrilled about that for a number of reasons, probably for the same reasons that the folks at the Better Way Alliance are trying to do what they’re trying to do. It’s basically affecting every sector.”

Researchers are interested in learning more about Ontario’s changing labour landscape.

Michalski said labour market conditions across the province are the focus of an upcoming report from McMaster University. The London Poverty Research Centre at King’s was asked to provide London numbers through a random survey of 800 residents last year.

Michalski expects the study to be public in a couple weeks, but he did share some of his insights.

For example, the research suggests that out of every 100 Londoners aged 25-54:

•46.4 are working full-time at permanent jobs with benefits.

•16.5 are working without benefits at either full-, part-time, or temporary jobs.

•Eight are self-employed.

•7.4 are working permanent jobs part-time.

•9.3 are on social assistance, either Ontario Works or the Ontario Disability Support Program.

•4.3 seem to be unemployed, looking for work, but aren’t using social assistance.

•Eight are not working, not on social assistance, and not looking for work. (These could be students or full-time parents, Michalski said.)

Among London’s working adults 18 and older, an estimated 65 per cent have permanent full-time employment, according to the research, but only about half work so-called “standard” jobs — 30 hours/week with benefits.

More research is available highlighting a rise in precarious work in London.

According to a March 2014 report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA), London lost 6,000 manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2008 and another 8,000 since then. In a more recent report, CCPA researchers found around 6.3 per cent of Londoners 18-64 earned an income below the Low Income Measure in 2012, second in the province only to Toronto (nine per cent).

Surveys from about 370 London employers informed this year’s EmployerOne Survey (worktrends.ca — an initiative of the London Economic Development Corporation and Elgin, Middlesex, and Oxford Counties Workforce Planning Development Board). According to that data (representing about 40,000 jobs), 71 per cent of respondents’ employees are working full-time. The rest filled part-time, contract, or seasonal jobs.

Those employers were also asked if they planned to hire this year. Of the jobs expected to be available (roughly 3,000 in total), 36 per cent are full-time (down from 64 in 2016), 16 per cent are part-time, eight per cent are contracts, and 41 per cent are seasonal (four times more than in 2016).

Dani Bartlett, the labour programs and services co-ordinator at United Way London and Middlesex, is familiar with this trend. She’s also supporting the Make It Fair campaign, a push by the Ontario Federation of Labour to influence lawmakers currently mulling changes to the province’s Labour Relations Act and Employment Standards Act.

About the EmployerOne Survey, “it’s quite clear that precarious work is only going to get worse,” Bartlett said. “And as we sort of look at the results and we talk to employers, they’re not feeling confident to hire full time work so it just feels like that cycle is going to keep happening.”

“We are more precarious in our workforce than most,” she added. “We’re sort of attracting these new start-up companies who aren’t going to pay those forever wages. There’s no promising news coming out (about) 500 jobs coming to town with wages people can live on.”

In fact, the region is about to absorb the loss of 600 jobs at Cami Assembly in Ingersoll.

The province’s labour law review has been delayed as debate continues about whether or not legislating private business to offer less precarious employment is the right move.

In the meantime, Baldwin hopes grassroots efforts like the Better Way Alliance can help offer solutions through cross-sector discussions about best practices.

“What are some of the tools that we can share between organizations about how we’re creating decent work? I think that’s where we can learn between nonprofits and business.”

CMontanini@postmedia.com

Twitter: @LondonerChris

 

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