Quality of Employment in Canada
Evening work, 2022

In April 2022, about 1 in 20 (4.8%) workers had a regular evening shift or evening hours. Evening work is most common in the accommodation and food services industry, where 1 in 5 (21.8%) workers usually work in the evenings. The proportion of workers who usually work regular evening hours was relatively high among students aged 15 to 24.

According to European Union standards for the Labour Force Survey,^Note  evening work refers to work that takes place after typical daytime hours (e.g. 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM) but before usual sleeping hours (e.g. 12:00 AM). Data from Statistics Canada on evening work refers to workers who work regular evening shifts or evening hours. The evening work indicator is therefore the percentage of workers whose usual schedule is a regular evening shift or evening hours.

Employers may schedule evening work to meet the demand for certain services, such as dining and entertainment. Working in the evening may also provide students and other workers with a schedule that allows them to attend to other responsibilities during the day. For others, working in the evenings may conflict with childcare and family responsibilities.

Data and analyses presented in this article are mostly based on a supplement to the Labour Force Survey collected in April 2022 among workers aged 15 to 69. Data refer to the main job and are not seasonally adjusted. Additional data points from the 2016 General Social Survey and the 2020 Survey on Quality of Employment are also reported for the same age group.

Historical trends

In April 2022, 918,000 people, or 4.8% of workers aged 15 to 69, usually worked a regular evening shift or regular evening hours. While the prevalence of evening work may be affected by seasonal employment patterns, previous data collected at other times of the year provide additional information on the share of workers who usually work in the evenings.

Data from the Survey on Quality of Employment, collected immediately before the pandemic in March 2020, indicates that among workers who were currently at work, or had worked in the previous 12 months, 6.5% had a regular evening shift or evening hours. The lower rate of evening work in April 2022 may be in part due to the decline in employment in the accommodation and food services industry, where the rate of evening work is highest. In April 2022, employment in this industry remained 13.9% (-170,000) below its pre-pandemic February 2020 levels (seasonally adjusted).

According to the General Social Survey: Canadians at work and home, 5.4% of workers had a regular evening shift in the fall of 2016.

A recent snapshot

In April 2022, the proportion of workers with regular evening hours was notably higher among youth aged 15 to 24 (14.2%) than among workers aged 25 to 54 (3.3%) and workers aged 55 to 69 (3.7%). Among workers aged 15 to 24, students (19.7%) were more likely to have regular evening hours than non-students (8.3%). Overall, employed men (4.8%) and women (4.9%) had similar rates of evening work.

The share of workers who usually work regular evening hours was notably higher in the accommodation and food services industry (21.8%). In April 2022, the industry accounted for nearly a quarter (24.4%) of all workers who usually work in the evenings. The rate of evening work was also above average in business, building and other support services (8.4%), arts and entertainment (8.0%), retail trade (7.3%), manufacturing (6.3%), and health care and social assistance (6.0%).

Working a regular evening shift or evening hours was more than three times as common among part-time workers^Note  (11.3%) compared with full-time workers (3.3%). This partly reflects the organization of work hours in accommodation and food services and other public-facing industries, where work shifts are often organized to meet the peak in demand for specific services. This contrasts with the share of workers who usually work at night, which was relatively similar for full-time and part-time workers in April 2022.

Among racialized groups, the share of workers who usually work in the evenings was highest among Filipino (11.8%) and Korean (10.0%) Canadians and lower among Arab (4.0%) and Chinese Canadians (4.4%). In April 2022, the share of workers employed in the accommodation and food services industry was about double the national average (5.4%) among Korean (11.6%) and Filipino (10.5%) Canadians.

While the timing of evening shifts may help some workers balance their work with other responsibilities, workers who usually work in the evenings were less likely to have a job providing flexible scheduling arrangements. In April 2022, 23.4 % of workers with regular evening hours could vary the time they started and ended their workday compared with 37.2% among workers with regular daytime hours. While over half of workers who usually work in the evenings (54.8%) indicated it was easy or very easy for them to take an hour or two off for personal reasons, this share was lower compared with their counterparts with regular day time hours (73.2%).

In a similar fashion to workers who usually work at night, the vast majority of workers with a regular evening shift or evening hours usually worked exclusively at locations other than their home (94.1%), compared with 72.2% for workers who worked regular daytime hours.

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