Employment indexes, by type of work

Growth has been in full-time employment since 2004

• The number of people working part time—less than 30 hours a week—has increased sharply over the last three decades. Recently, part-time employment grew at a fast pace from 2001 to 2003 (9.7%), but plateaued in 2004 and 2005. Nearly three million Canadian workers, or 1 in 5, worked part time at their main job in 2005, compared with only 1 in 8 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 between 18.1% to 19.2% since 1991. Although part-time employment grew at a steady pace since 1976, there were declines in full-time during the recessionary years of the early 1980s and early 1990s. During most of the boom period (1994 to 200), full-time employment grew at a faster pace than part-time, averaging 2.4% annually. In 2004 and 2005, employment growth was all in full-time work, with 13.2 million people working 30 or more hours a week.
• 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 Australia and the Netherlands, have seen their share of part-time employment rise from 1987 to 2004. Moreover, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and Germany had higher part-time employment rates in 2004 than Canada.

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