Summary of low-paid work and economically vulnerable families over the last two decades

The context: Wages 1981-2004 The last two decades have witnessed changes likely to affect wage levels and job stability in Canada: growth of international trade and outsourcing, computer-based technological changes, shifts of employment away from manufacturing, decline in union density and in large firms’ share of total employment. [...] Tracking workers over four years during the latter part of the expansionary phase of the business cycle in both the 1980s and 1990s (1985 to 1989, and 1996 to 2000), Morissette and Zhang (2005) ask what proportion of low earners (those earning less than $23,551 in 2001 dollars) escape low earnings after four years. [...] Yet such factors as the growth in the number of dual-earner families and the increase in the level of experience of low-paid workers have offset these influences, leaving the overall incidence of low income among low-paid workers unchanged. [...] For recent and mid-term male immigrants aged 35 to 54, the chances of being both low- paid and in low income doubled between 1980 and 2000; for less educated males 25-34, the rate jumped from 4% in 1980 to 7% in 2000; young men and women under 25 and unattached males under 40 are also increasingly more likely to face the two conditions. [...] V. Two increasingly vulnerable groups: recent immigrants and the less educated Recent immigrants: The proportion of recent immigrant employees (those arriving during the five years prior to the census reference year) who are low-paid workers in low-income families increased from 9% in 1980 to 12% in 2000.