Work hours instability in Canada

In doing this, we estimate the share of the cross-sectional variance in work hours that is attributable to hours instability at the individual level, as well as describe the persistence of standard, long and short hours of work. [...] Johnson and Kuhn (2004) provide a complete summary of the earlier literature, and reinforce the earlier results of Morissette, Myles and Picot (1994), Morissette (1995), and Picot 1. For the purpose of this comparison, we use the actual hours worked in all jobs series from the Labour Force Survey, which is the only series unaffected by changes in questionnaire design over the period. [...] Concern over what was regarded as the inequitable allocation of working hours led to the creation of the Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work in 1994 whose report (Report of the Advisory Group on Working Time and the Distribution of Work, 1994) included the recommendation for “a new public policy priority that emphasises redistribution and reduction in working time” (p. [...] They find that changes in work hours in the order of 8 hours per week are normal, and that changes of 16 hours are also common, suggesting that there is substantial variation in the hours people work from week to week. [...] Nearly one-third of all workers (and 40.2% of men) worked between 1,750 and 2,400 hours in all 5 years of the panel, and one in two workers in the panel worked standard hours in at least 4 years of the 5-year panel.