[URBAN NOTE] "Precarious work is now the new norm, United Way report says"

[rfmcdonald]

The Toronto Star's Nick Madonick notes the increasing precarity of employment in Toronto. This has an obvious, and negative, impact on the lives of Torontonians.

Precarious employment is here to stay, a new study shows, and Toronto’s new economic reality impacts everyone from the working poor to the middle class.

The research confirms United Way and McMaster University’s groundbreaking 2013 findings that fewer than half of workers in the GTA and Hamilton are in permanent, full-time jobs.

Instead, about 52 per cent of workers are in temporary, contract, or part-time positions.

“All the indicators suggest that this is the trend of the new labour market,” said Wayne Lewchuk, the report’s lead researcher.

“This is the new form of employment.”