Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-f46jp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-02T23:38:04.825Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Multiple jobs? The prevalence, intensity and determinants of multiple jobholding in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Paul Glavin
Paul Glavin*
Affiliation:
McMaster University, Canada
*
Paul Glavin, McMaster University, 635 KTH, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton, ON L8S 4L8, Canada. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

While traditional labour market estimates indicate that there has been little change in the proportion of workers holding multiple jobs in North America, survey instrument deficiencies may be hiding more substantial growth driven by the gig economy. To address this possibility, I test a broader measure of multiple jobholding to examine its prevalence in the Canadian workforce based on two national studies of workers (2011 Canadian Work Stress and Health Study and 2019 Canadian Quality of Work and Economic Life Study). Almost 20% of workers in 2019 reported multiple jobholding – a rate that is three times higher than Statistics Canada estimates. While multivariate analyses reveal that the multiple jobholding rate in 2019 was 30% higher than in the 2011 Canadian Work Stress and Health Study, multiple jobholders in 2019 were less likely to report longer work hours in secondary employment. Analyses also revealed that having financial difficulties is consistently associated with multiple jobholding in 2011 and 2019. Collectively, these findings suggest that while the spread of short-term work arrangements has facilitated Canadians’ secondary employment decisions, for many workers these decisions may reflect underlying problems in the quality of primary employment in Canada, rather than labour market opportunity. I discuss the potential links between multiple jobholding, the gig economy and employment precariousness.

Keywords

J21Employment conditionsgig economyinformal economylabour marketsmultiple jobholdingsecondary employmentsociology of work
Type
Themed collection articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 31 , Issue 3: The Future of Work , September 2020 , pp. 383 - 402
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abraham, KG and Amaya, A (2018) Probing for informal work activity. NBER Working Paper 24880. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Allard, M and Polivka, AE (2018) Measuring labour market activity today: are the words work and job too limiting for surveys? US Bureau of Labour Statistics. Monthly Labour Review, November, pp. 1–19.Google Scholar
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) (2019) Jobs in Australia, 2011-12 to 2016-17. Cat. no. 6160.0. Available at: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/6160.0 (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Bamberry, L and Campbell, I (2012) Multiple jobholders in Australia: motives and personal impact. Australian Bulletin of Labour 38(4): 293–314.Google Scholar
Beckhusen, J (2019) Multiple jobholders in the United States: 2013. Report No. P70br-163, 29 May. US Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, US Census Bureau. Available at: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2019/demo/p70br-163.html (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Bell, D, Hart, RA and Wright, RE (1997) Multiple jobholding as a ‘hedge’ against unemployment. CEPR Discussion Papers No. 1626. Available at: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1626 (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Boyd, EM, Sliter, MT and Chatfield, S (2016) Double trouble: work–family conflict and well-being for second jobholders. Community, Work & Family 19(4): 462–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bracha, A and Burke, MA (2019) How big is the gig? Unpublished Working Paper. Boston MA: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anat_Bracha/publication/321228231_How_Big_is_the_Gig/links/5a15b87c4585153b546cadc9/How-Big-is-the-Gig.pdf (accessed 16 June 2020).Google Scholar
Collins, B, Garin, A, Jackson, E, et al. (2019) Is gig work replacing traditional employment? Evidence from two decades of tax returns. Unpublished Paper, IRS SOI Joint Statistical Research Program. Available at: https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/is-gig-work-replacing-traditional-employment-evidence-from-two-deGoogle Scholar
Dickey, H, Watson, V and Zangelidis, A (2011) Is it all about money? An examination of the motives behind moonlighting. Applied Economics 43(26): 3767–3774.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eurostat (2015) Population in employment having a second job. Available at: http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/employment-and-social-inclusion-indicators/employment-guidlines/indicators (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Farrell, D and Greig, F (2016) Paychecks, Paydays, and the Online Platform Economy. JP Morgan Chase Institute. Available at: https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/institute/document/jpmc-institute-volatility-2-report.pdf (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Fulford, M and Patterson, M (2019) Multiple jobholders in Canada. Catalogue no. 71-222-X2019003, 28 May. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/71-222-x/71-222-x2019003-eng.htm (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Galinsky, E, Aumann, K and Bond, JT (2013) Times are changing: gender and generation at work and at home. In: Poelmans, S, Greenhaus, JH and Las Heras Maestro, M (eds) Expanding the Boundaries of Work-Family Research: A Vision for the Future. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 279–296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hipple, SF (2010) Multiple jobholding during the 2000s. Monthly Labour Review 133(7): 21–32.Google Scholar
Hirsch, BT, Husain, MM and Winters, JV (2016) Multiple jobholding, local labour markets, and the business cycle. IZA Journal of Labour Economics 5(4): 1–29.Google Scholar
Jeon, S, Liu, H and Ostrovsky, Y (2019) Measuring the Gig Economy in Canada using Administrative Data. Catalogue No. 11F0019M 437, 16 December. Statistics Canada. Available at: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11f0019m/11f0019m2019025-eng.htm (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar
Kässi, O and Lehdonvirta, V (2018) Online labour index: measuring the online gig economy for policy and research. Technological Forecasting and Social Change 137(C): 241–248.Google Scholar
Katz, LF and Krueger, AB (2019) The rise and nature of alternative work arrangements in the United States, 1995–2015. ILR Review 2(2): 382–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimmel, J and Powell, LM (2001) A comparative analysis of moonlighting in Canada and the United States. In: Houseman, S and Nakamura, A (eds) Working Time in Comparative Perspective: Life-Cycle Working Time and Nonstandard Work, vol. 2. Kalamazoo, MI: W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, pp. 293–326.Google Scholar
Klinger, S and Weber, E (2020) Secondary job holding in Germany. Applied Economics 52: 3238–3256.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kostyshyna, O and Lalé, E (2019) On the evolution of multiple jobholding in Canada. Unpublished paper. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3357588 (accessed 1 May 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mize, TD (2019) Best practices for estimating, interpreting, and presenting nonlinear interaction effects. Sociological Science 6: 81–117.Google Scholar
Panos, GA, Pouliakas, K and Zangelidis, A (2014) Multiple jobholding, skill diversification, and mobility. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 53(2): 223–272.Google Scholar
Rosenblat, A and Stark, L (2016) Algorithmic labour and information asymmetries: a case study of Uber’s drivers. International Journal of Communication 10: 3758–3784.Google Scholar
Schieman, S (2013) Job-related resources and the pressures of working life. Social Science Research 42(2): 271–282.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shishko, R and Rostker, B (1976) The economics of multiple jobholding. The American Economic Review 66(3): 298–308.Google Scholar
Wu, Z, Baimbridge, M and Zhu, Y (2009) Multiple jobholding in the United Kingdom: evidence from the British Household Panel Survey. Applied Economics 41(21): 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zangelidis, A (2014) Labour market insecurity and second jobholding in Europe. Available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2615268 (accessed 1 May 2020).Google Scholar