If any of the 40,000-plus Grade 12 students scheduled to graduate in June this year are in the habit of nipping over to the nearest Tim Hortons for a lunch-hour coffee with friends, they should take a good look around.
They might be looking at their future, but only if that future does not include significant post-high-school education.
The good news for grads is that the unemployment rate in Canada is about 5.9 per cent. There are jobs to be had.
The bad news is that the number of prime working-age Canadians with full-time, year-round jobs is the lowest since Statistics Canada began keeping records, and the quality of Canadian jobs continues to fall, while “precarious work” continues to rise.
In fact “precarity,” a new word to me before writing this column, means a precarious existence, lacking in predictability, job security, health, and material or psychological welfare.
The entire social class defined by this condition has been termed the “precariat.” Seriously.
According to employees of an Ontario Tim Hortons owned by the children of the chain’s founders, they have been told to sign a document acknowledging they are losing paid breaks, paid benefits and other incentives as a result of the province’s minimum-wage hike. Take it or leave it.
That’s pretty much the definition of “precarious work.”
People who follow trends in Canadian employment say precarious work is the way of the future.
Even Finance Minister Bill Morneau is on record as suggesting that young people might as well get used to today’s economy being dominated by low wages, job insecurity and “hopping from job to job.”
They will need, said Morneau, to get used to the “job churn” (another new term) of short-term contracts.
A mere decade ago, the world of work looked very different. According to Forbes, workers currently stay in a job for an average of 4.4 years, a number that has been steadily declining for decades.
In comparison, baby boomers were much more likely to stay at one job for the majority of their careers, and more than half of baby boomers stayed with an employer for more than two decades, including 18 per cent who reported 30 years or more with one employer.
Closer analysis of current employment reports suggests that what’s actually happening in 2018 is that employers are structuring jobs so workers must take on a series of flexible, short-term contracts at low pay, with no benefits, instead of stable, predictable, long-term employment.
In other words, people are still working; it’s the terms of employment that have changed.
CIBC observes that the quality of Canadian jobs is undergoing “a slow but steady deterioration.” And CIBC points out that “the share of workers who are paid below the average wage has risen over the years to just under 61 per cent in 2015.”
For those in low-wage, part-time positions, precarious work can be a trap. Their earnings remain low, and their poverty limits their housing options, ability to form relationships and ability to start a family — this according to The Precarity Penalty, a report from the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario research group.
And for our 2018 high-school grad, that’s not the worst of it.
According to the same report, insecure work leads to poorer physical and mental health and high levels of stress for low-income families.
People with insecure jobs don’t get benefits, rarely are allowed training and don’t have pensions. About 60 per cent of them said their income varied from week to week and almost one-third had been up to four weeks without income in the past year.
It was in 1972 that rocker Alice Cooper had a big hit with School’s Out Forever.
But things have changed these past 46 years and now our grad, sitting in Timmy’s wondering how to avoid “precarity,” might usefully consider a report by Sheryl Boswell, director of marketing at Monster.ca, which breaks down the top jobs of the future that today’s students should be considering (and how they can prepare).
For those thinking about a university education, business management, public administration, social and behavioural sciences, law and health-related careers top the list. Non-degree options include engineering-related technologies, math, computer and information sciences.
So graduation from Grade 12 does not mean school’s out. Not yet — if ever.
To avoid “precarity,” school is just getting started.
Geoff Johnson is a former superintendent of schools.
