Employment indexes, by type of work

Part-time employment jumped in 2002

• The number of people working part time—less than 30 hours a week—has increased sharply over the last three decades. Although part-time growth slowed from 1994 to 2001, in 2002 part-time employment returned to its long-term annual growth rate of 6%. Growth continued into 2003, but to a lesser extent, increasing 2.8% by year-end. Three million Canadian workers, or 1 in 5, worked part time at their main job in 2003, compared with only 1 in 10 in 1976.
• As a share of total employment, increases in part-time jobs kept pace with increases in full-time employment over the 1990s, leaving the part-time rate at a stable 18% to 19% since 1991. Unlike the steady growth of part-time workers since 1976, full-time workers saw their numbers decline during the recessionary years of the early 1980s and early 1990s. During most of the boom period of the mid to late 1990s, full-time employment grew at a faster pace than part-time, averaging 3% annually. From 2002 to 2003, full-time employment grew by 2.0% to 12.8 million workers.
• Strong long-term growth in part-time employment is not unique to Canada. With the exception of the United States, all the G7 countries, as well as Sweden, Australia and the Netherlands, have seen their share of part-time employment rise from 1987 to 2002. Moreover, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and the United Kingdom had higher part-time employment rates in 2002 than Canada.

Enlarge chart