Precarious Employment and Difficult Daily Commutes

Abstract

Precarious employment is on the rise in Canada, increasing by nearly 50% in the last two decades. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which it can impact upon geographical mobility. Employment-related geographical mobility refers to mobility to, from and between workplaces, as well as mobility as part of work. We report on a qualitative study conducted among 27 immigrant men and women in Toronto that investigates the relationship between precarious employment and daily commutes while exploring the ways in which gender, class and migration structure this relationship.Interview data reveal that participants were largely unable to work where they lived or live where they worked. Their precarious jobs were characterized by conditions that resulted in long, complex, unfamiliar, unsafe and expensive commutes. These commuting difficulties, in turn, resulted in participants having to refuse or quit jobs, including desirable jobs, or being unable to engage in labour market strategies that could improve their employment conditions (e.g. taking courses, volunteering, etc.). Participants’ commuting difficulties were amplified by the delays, infrequency, unavailability and high cost of public transportation. These dynamics disproportionately and/or differentially impacted certain groups of workers.Precarious work has led to workers having to absorb an ever-growing share of the costs associated with their employment, underscored in our study as time, effort and money spent travelling to and from work. We discuss the forces that underlie the spatial patterning of work and workers in Toronto, namely the growing income gap and the increased polarization among neighbourhoods that has resulted in low-income immigrants increasingly moving from the centre to the edges of the city. We propose policy recommendations for public transportation, employment, housing and child care that can help alleviate some of the difficulties described.L’emploi précaire poursuit sa croissance au Canada, augmentant de près de 50% au cours des deux dernières décennies. Toutefois, nous connaissons mal les mécanismes par lesquels cette forme d’organisation du travail peut influer sur la mobilité géographique des travailleurs. La mobilité géographique liée à l’emploi renvoie ici aux divers déplacements que doivent effectuer les travailleurs depuis et entre les lieux de travail, ainsi que les déplacements intrinsèques à l’exercice de l’emploi lui-même. Les résultats qui suivent proviennent d’une étude qualitative effectuée auprès de 27 hommes et femmes immigrants vivant à Toronto, étude qui s’est attardée à la relation entre l’emploi précaire et les déplacements quotidiens qui y sont rattachés, tout en explorant les façons par lesquelles le genre, la classe sociale et la migration structurent cette relation.Les données en provenance des entrevues indiquent que les participants étaient généralement incapables de travailler près de leur lieu de résidence, ou encore d’habiter près de leur lieu de travail. Leurs emplois précaires se caractérisaient p...

In search of a digital nomad: defining the phenomenon

“…1). Studies of work explicate the effects of precariousness of employment on changing working cultures (Premji 2017), which is an important aspect in understanding the production of digital nomadism. In relation to mobility, contemporary studies of work focus on two perspectives: employment related geographical mobility and the digitalization of movement though platform work and telecommuting (Bissell 2018; Cresswell et al 2016; Golden and Gajendran 2019).…”

Occupational Health and Safety for Migrant Domestic Workers in Canada: Dimensions of (Im)mobility

“…4,5 For these reasons, Stephanie Premji argues for the fuller integration of a mobility dimension into the study of precarious work and its implications for health and safety. 6 Migrant domestic work, and live-in caregiving more specifically, is an important site for understanding how OHS and related employment conditions are shaped by intersecting forms of (im)mobility. For domestic workers, transnational mobility is intimately tied to everyday micromobilities and immobilities.…”

Geographic variations in precarious employment outcomes between immigrant and Canadian‐born populations

“…Employment‐related geographic mobility constraints are another factor shaping the spatial segmentation of labour supply. This is demonstrated by McLafferty and Preston (1992), Preston, McLafferty, and Liu (1998), and Premji (2017), all of whom find that immigrant women and visible minorities in low‐wage precarious work experience spatial entrapment, in the sense that they have poor spatial access to jobs, as indicated by their long commuting times and less‐localized labour market.…”