WORK

Who is working in Toronto and who isn’t?

Toronto’s job numbers are increasing, but almost 1 in 4 is part-time:

> The city’s overall employment grew 1.5% in 2014 with 20,850 jobs added.

> Of Toronto’s total employment (1,384,390 jobs counted), 76.8% were full-time and 23.2% part-time (a 1.7% increase in part-time work since the previous year).

Toronto’s youth face troubling trends:

> The youth unemployment rate reached a high of 21.65% in 2014. The rate has hovered near 20% for more than a decade.

> About 10% of youth 15-24 yrs. old in the GTHA (as many as 83,000) were “Not in Education, Employment or Training” (NEET, a Statistics Canada category).

> Groups over-represented in NEET include youth who are racialized and newcomer, aboriginal, living in poverty or in conflict with the law, in and leaving care, LGBT, or with disabilities and special needs.

Unemployment is more likely among Toronto’s recent immigrants than Canadian-born workers:

> In Toronto, the unemployment rate for those aged 15 and over born in Canada was 9.0% in 2014 (up from 7.9% in 2013).

> For the city’s recent immigrants (entered Canada within the last 5 years) unemployment stood at 16.2%.

> For Toronto immigrants in Canada 5-10 years, unemployment was 12.9% (up from 9.7% in 2012).

> For recent immigrant youth in the city (15-24 yrs. old), the unemployment rate was 24.1% vs. 21.65% for all youth.

What other workforce trends should we be concerned about?

Precarious employment is rising:

> 22.7% of Toronto workers 25-65 years old were precariously employed last year, in jobs that are temporary and contract (up from 19.4% in 2013). For the GTHA, that figure was 20.3%.

> Only 45.7% of Toronto’s workers have the most secure form of employment, the “standard employment relationship” of permanent full-time employment with benefits.

> Temporary and contract employment increased by 17% in Toronto between 2011 and 2014.