Precarious Employment in Canada: Taking Stock, Taking Action

Abstract

Precarious employment is an increasingly common term used to highlight labour market insecurity. In Canada, precarious employment normally involves those forms of work involving atypical employment contracts, limited social benefits and statutory entitlements, job insecurity, low job tenure, low wages and high risks of ill health. Precarious employment is shaped by tendencies in late capitalism whereby employers use subcontracting and other strategies to minimise labour costs and thereby lower the bottom of the labour market. This Forum on Precarious Employment considers the nature and shape of precarious employment in Canada based on preliminary findings of four research projects of the Community University Research Alliance on Contingent Employment (ACE).