scrubbedexpat091

Apparently secure full-time jobs are in short supply being replaced with part-time, temp and other cost cutting ways.

Secure jobs in short supply in Canada's new tough labour market - Business - CBC News


I beleive it, everything seems to be part-time these days, full-time jobs seem to be slowly going the way of the dodo bird.


This article is from March, but job quality is at a 25 year low.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/job-...cibc-1.2982891

Shard

Just wait another 25 years and see how few there are !

scrubbedexpat091

Hopefully by then i'll be too old to work.... I don't personally see a good future overall for people, not sure I like what the future may bring.

I'll be 61 in 25 years, so if still alive hopefully it will be nearing the end of my need to be employed.

I am a little concerned for the future when it comes to my sisters kids. I have cousins 10 years younger then me, college educated who still live at home as they can't find full-time work and simply can't afford the cost of housing in the area. (So. California.)


Everyone I work with has multiple jobs as none of their current employers offer stable hours, let alone full-time hours. People can't survive on 16 hours a week. Then companies complain when the other jobs prevent the workers from being able to work more hours when needed. Its a totally botched system.

BristolUK

Sometimes it would be good to have youth again - especially if you can keep the knowledge and experience one gains with age - but most times I am glad I was from a luckier era and able to get a job straight from school and be able to stay in it without the need to "justify" continued employment by way of reapplying for it periodically or having a series of contracts and all the rest of it. Glad I was able to get in on the property market too, before the various 'booms' made it impossible for so many.

I wouldn't have been able to take early retirement/live here without my ropey old two-bed terraced house fetching 9 times what I paid for it.

scrubbedexpat091

If I could have picked the era to be born in, I would have chosen late 1950's the era my parents were born, their era seemed to have been the perfect timing for stability.

I know it wasn't all perfect, but it was possible based on what I saw with my dad to find a job and stay at that employer for 36 years and counting....

Boggling of the mind to think he has been at the same employer (various positions however) as long as I have been living.

My mom isn't in the best situation but her's was health related in 2003, up until then she had been with the same employer for almost 20 years, but cancer came and after treatment her body couldn't handle the physical nature of her work. (Paramedic) so she had to leave the company.

If she had not gotten cancer, she likely would still be with that company as a paramedic.

My sister has 10 years with her company, but her pay is about the same as mine, they don't pay well, she has kids so can't job hop.

My longest job was 5 years.

Former Lancastrian

Times certainly have changed since I grew up as well.
So what are these secure jobs that one can get?
From my point of view a lot of these so called secure jobs but not 100% guaranteed are in the public sector that a lot of people like to vilify.
Lets look at some of the jobs in the public service
Nurses, Police, Armed Forces, Fire Fighters, Municipal, Provincial and Federal Govt workers to name but a few. Sure these people can be let go but overall their downsizing when required is done through attrition as opposed to mass layoffs which we see in the private sector.
How many of us elect to work for the same employer for 30 to 45 years?
Yes some people can choose a career for the same time but do they end up working for multiple employers or become self employed?
Sure not all people want to do these jobs or work for the Government or work for the same employer but chances are these are the types of workers who fear less of being laid off than others in the private sector.
I admit I could possibly be laid off if the Govt decides they need less workers or my Agency decides I no longer meet the standards for employment but thats something I can't control.
Im certainly glad Im not in my 20s anymore and looking for work.

scrubbedexpat091

I wouldn't say nurses are in the secure category with the amount of casual employment used now in the health field, one can go years before getting a permanent position.

I'd personally prefer a semi-stable job with consistent hours and days off, and raises that at least over inflation.

One of the biggest stress inducers for me is knowing one of us (wife and I) can be let go tomorrow with little warning and be pretty screwed within a month.

Always one step to the streets as I have heard some call it.

BristolUK

You could be describing me...except I left after 31 years and moved here.

scrubbedexpat091

My dad can retire at any time, but his wife has 2 or 3 more years to go, so he is working because she can't retire yet, and he knows he will be too bored at home 7 days a week....lol

scootb

They have been going that way in the UK for over a decade,my brother was forced onto a zero hour contract,then his hours were slowly cut from 40/week to 8 hours/fortnightly to get rid of him,all perfectly legal too.
I have worked in a place where it was 3-6 month contracts,only 2 people in the company were ever given permanent positions,and that was only because the previous owner gave the 2 employees those contracts(his son liked to keep employees in fear of their job).

scrubbedexpat091

Our work contracts are so vague they are not worth the paper they are written on, all based on provincial labor law, which isn't exactly tough rules with protection.

Basically the we don't guarantee you any hours, either party can part ways following provincial rules, and so on.

When my wife worked at Wal-Mart their hours were all over the place, they would work you 4 hours (they do have a 4 hr per week minimum) all the way up to 35 hours and everything in between.

As you went up the pay scale, you also got less hours, since you cost more so they prefer to give the hours to newer employees making less. Not like their raises are huge, wife's raise in the 2 years she was there was 20 cents and 26 cents per hour.

I had an interview last year with Air Canada, and while the job was permanent, the hours per week would be anywhere from 0 to 40 with no guarantee of any.

I saw a posting today, part-time permanent on the health authority website 35.5 hours per week. I assume under the union contract 37.5 is full-time so 35 is part-time and they can avoid benefits that way.

The previous owners of where I work now (before I was hired) offered benefits, the new owners got rid of benefits, so some of the older employees are pissed off.


I just laugh at ads that want you to be available, everyday of the week, all shifts, but only want to give you 20 hours a week, but you have to be available every day and all shifts, making it difficult to find another job.

Shard

At low pay, it really is despicable.

Steve_

I watched that on CBC last night, they interviewed a bookkeeper from Peterborough (well-known for being an economic powerhouse) and an immigrant from Bangladesh.

And the immigrant from Bangladesh went blathering on about the Canadian govt. should be helping people at home rather than foreign aid to people abroad, which I thought was a bit rich coming from an immigrant!

Exactly, there's no such thing as a "secure job".

scrubbedexpat091

Yes it is. One thing companies no longer see is value in employees. Employees are just another cost they would rather not have.

A few employers ago, I am pretty sure the business was a front for something, it had virtually no customers coming through, wages always exceeded revenue as other red flags. I left within a couple months.

I got bored one night and googled the owners names, and up came articles about convictions in tax fraud.

It irks me how shady some businesses are.

One small business in town treated her employees so badly she never had staff, my wife worked there for 3 months (before we met) worked her 50 hours a week (no OT because she claimed she could not afford it, and my wife isn't a wave maker.) and spewed insults to her employees.

She got to a point she treated so many people so badly, people stopped even going to the business and she has since gone under.

Never piss off small town consumers, small market, get the word out your a a nasty place to work for, and you may find customers stop coming too. Those employees all have friends and family.

I am pretty tolerant of most of the stuff employers want, but I draw the line at breaking labor laws. I'll give an employer a chance to rectify the situation before going to the government to complain, but I have no problem filing a complaint if not rectified.

Only way labor laws are effective is if employees stand up when they are broken.

Not following OT laws seems to be the most common one broken. Companies wan't free or cheap labor these days and will do downright shady stuff to get it.

scrubbedexpat091

This small business in Red Deer illegally brought in foreign workers by deception or coercion.

Red Deer duo facing human trafficking charges | Calgary Herald

Harsh treatment of workers by Red Deer motel operators results in human traffick

Red Deer couple charged with human trafficking at central Alberta hotel | Globalnews.ca

And apparently this ins't unique and there are other investigations on going in Alberta for the same type of thing.

Makes you wonder how much of this exists in Canada without anyone knowing?