Microworking in Toronto

Microworking in Toronto

Microworking in Toronto means low wages, and it always lacks benefits and job security. *However, the demand for online labour in Canada is high and increases every year.

*Source: The iLabour Project, OLI

Defining microwork in Toronto

If you’re not familiar with the term “microwork” you’re not alone. But you’re likely familiar with the notion of the gig economy. Think of microwork as the hidden, service-based, and most precarious work of the gig economy. It also goes by the following names:

• ghost work
• microtasking
• crowdsourcing for pay
• microjobs
• digital labour
• human-based computation

Before designing solutions, we needed a common definition. You can find the working definition we used for the project in Phase 1: Signals sprint >

The troubling trends

Microworking in Toronto exists on the fringes of non-standard employment. At the same time that it is falling outside the scope of many workforce stakeholders, demand is growing. Microwork also spans a vast number of occupations – from knowledge workers to service-level workers. Microwork’s near-invisible status is problematic.

One of the troubling trends we identified is People as a service. The demand for task-level outsourcing is increasing. And as microwork platforms simplify coordination with a vast pool of taskers, permanent jobs can be broken into specific (including very specific) tasks. Microwork.

Studies show that the number of people in standard full-time employment in Toronto is falling. The Toronto Foundation’s Vital Signs Report Issue Area 3: Work found that “Young people and newcomers are disproportionately finding themselves in these jobs.”

Unemployment rates in Toronto are as low as they have been since 1990. At the same time, most new jobs are temporary or self-employed, providing no benefits and putting workers at high risk of poverty. Young people and newcomers are disproportionately finding themselves in these jobs. For much of the last decade, income growth has been stagnant after inflation. In fact, it increased only after minimum wage increases were announced in 2017.

– Toronto’s Vital Signs Report 2019/20

Four troubling trends

Employment precarity

In Toronto it is a fact that specific groups are more vulnerable to employment precarity. The United Way of Greater Toronto (UWGT) looked at the income gap between young people, immigrants, and racialized groups and everyone else. They concluded that racialized groups, newcomers and youth have become poorer over time. 

• For every dollar a middle-aged person in a permanent, full-time job in Toronto earns, a young person in the same form of employment in Toronto earns 62.7 cents. 
• For every dollar earned by non-racialized Torontonians, racialized residents made an average of only 52.1 cents.

– Rebalancing the Opportunity Equation, UWGT

In 2018, Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario (PEPSO) also published The Generation Effect. The report defines precarious employment as “workers who score the highest on the Employment Precarity Index. This term often refers to non-standard employment.

Millennials born between 1982 and 1997 are the first generation to begin their work careers in this new labour market. Work is hard to find and many of the jobs on offer are temporary. Jobs that provide pensions and extended health benefits are few and far between.

– The Generation Effect. PEPSO

Everybody’s hustling

A microworking in Toronto trend we identified is Everybody’s hustling. It is a trend toward seeing the gig economy as a way of life in Toronto. Studies on the gig economy gave us some insights into how microwork might play out in the coming decade.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) looked at the state of the on-demand service economy in Toronto. Although microwork wasn’t part of their analysis, they still found that nine per cent of those surveyed indicated that they work in the on-demand service economy.

The on-demand economy is one of the most precarious labour markets in the GTA. Workers in this sector are considered independent contractors and therefore are denied protections like minimum wage and overtime pay provided through the Employment Standards Act. Their work is contingent upon service demands made through an online platform, with the expectation of just-in-time service delivery.

– Sharing economy” or on-demand service economy? CCPA

Note: The CCPA study focused on Uber, food delivery, cleaning, home repairs and others.

A path to a career or precarity?

The Brookfield Institute report, Future-proof: Preparing young Canadians for the future of work, considers whether part-time microwork and other gig economy work creates a career pathway, or only reinforces existing precarity. Even more thorny is the question of who might experience which path.

The gig economy is being experienced differently by different workers. Those with highly specialized, in-demand skills can acquire a diverse array of interesting, high-paying jobs, while being afforded the ability to structure their own working arrangements. For lower-skilled workers, gigs can mean temporary, contract or on-call work with lower wages and a lack of benefits and security… This is an opportunity as well as a challenge. Freelancing can provide more flexibility and job experience to highly skilled workers, which can, in some cases, help youth transition into full-time employment, if they so choose. It also means increased uncertainty and working without some employment benefits that have yet to catch up to this new reality.

– Brookfield Institute, Future-Proof

T.O. grind

Drawing on over 500 signals, we also identified the T.O. grind as a microworking in Toronto trend. Although the world’s biggest microwork platform, Amazon Mechanical Turk, has been around since 2005, microworking in Toronto remains relatively unstudied. Added to that, the average person doesn’t know much about it. But there’s little argument that Toronto residents face rising affordability challenges.

The Online Labour Index confirms that technology is also creating much of the demand for microwork. We need to pay attention to Toronto’s rising global tech status.

The Bank of Canada recently released The Size and Characteristics of Informal (Gig) Work in Canada. When they introduced new survey questions, they found:

Earnings motives were the primary reason for engaging in such work. Income earned from informal activities tends to be lower than income earned in a formal job for an equivalent amount of time. Moreover, participation in informal jobs also likely reflects precautionary motives: those who did participate in informal work had a higher perceived probability of job loss over the coming year and more irregular work schedules…

Part-time workers (including those who are looking for full-time work) are the most likely to engage in informal paid activities, and just over one-third (37 per cent) of respondents participated in such work as a result of weak economic conditions. Moreover, slightly over half of respondents would substitute informal hours for hours worked in the formal sector, for no increase in pay.

– Bank of Canada, Staff Analytical Note, 2019-6

The OLI tracks demand

The Oxford Internet Institute’s Online Labour Index (OLI) regularly updates a comparison of supply and demand flows for online outsourcing platforms. However, the OLI represents the broader platform freelancing market, not just microtasking portals. Canada ranks high for employers using online outsourcing platforms. Hence, it is a growth area to keep an eye on.

Thanks to OLI, we know something about how many companies in countries are using online outsourcing platforms. We also know that it is increasing. On the other hand, little is known about microworkers themselves.

The TWIG microtasking project was designed to be open to microwork as high-skilled or low-skilled work. For the most part, however, microworking in Toronto means low wages, and it presently lacks benefits and job security.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) found that taking unpaid work into account, microworkers earn a median hourly wage around USD 2.00 per hour. The mean wages of microworkers amounted to USD 3.13 per hour.

So, not high-paying. Indeed, not even close to minimum wage in Toronto.

Source: What have we learned from the market for Online Labour? OLI