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The report defines gig work as “a form of employment characterized by short-term jobs or tasks which does not guarantee steady work and where the worker must take specific actions to stay employed.”

Gig work in Canada is continuing to expand, said Stephanie Ross, a labour studies professor at McMaster University, and it’s a good indicator that the labour market isn’t “able to provide people with the kinds of jobs that historically have allowed them to have stable, full-time, full-year, employment.”

More than 300,000 full-time jobs in Ontario have disappeared since July, according to data from Statistics Canada.

“It also signals that people are dissatisfied with the extent to which those kinds of (full-time) jobs allow people the flexibility to manage work and other personal responsibilities,” Ross added.

However, there is a trade off for some of the perceived benefits to being a gig worker, Ross pointed out.

“The flexibility comes with the likelihood that they’re not going to be considered employees,” she said. “That cuts them off from accessing a whole suite of rights and entitlements that in Canada we connect to employee status ... and the tools that allow workers to act collectively to change and improve their terms and conditions of work.”

In the third quarter of 2022, more than half a million — 588,000 — self-employed gig workers and those who work through digital platforms lacked control and access to the full benefits and advantages typically associated with working for oneself, according to Statistics Canada. This includes freedom to hire paid help, choose their work hours or set their own prices, the report said.

The share of gig workers among all workers rose to 8.2 per cent in 2016 from 5.5 per cent in 2005, according to Statistics Canada. In 2020, this jumped to approximately 10 per cent of the total labour force.

 The rising number of gig workers is also driven by newcomers seeking quick income.

For example, the workforce for app-based ride-hailing and delivery companies like Uber, DoorDash and Lyft grew 46 per cent in 2023 to 365,000 — up from 250,000 in 2022, according to the most recent Statistics Canada labour force survey.

But landed immigrants accounted for nearly 60 per cent of the 365,000 people who provided either personal transport or delivery services through an app or platform in 2023, compared with 53 per cent the prior year.

“This is a racialized labour force where there is a higher proportion of people who are either immigrants or racialized people, who are experiencing discrimination or various barriers to entry into the labour market that offers full-time, full-year, stable employment,” Ross said.

“And so in order for them to access a survival strategy, the gig economy fills that gap.”

But under Ontario’s labour laws these workers are not considered employees, which means they are not entitled to benefits including unemployment insurance, sick days or even minimum wage.

Ross said there is a concern that the lack of employment rights in the gig sector will be normalized in other sectors as the number of gig workers increases, especially for “employers who are already trying to figure out how to reduce their legal obligation.”

“It creates an environment where ‘gigification’ isn’t just for platform workers,” Ross said. “It’s something that other workers are going to be confronting.”