Finance Minister Bill Morneau last year warned Canadians they will have to get used to precarious work. Now a new survey from a staffing agency suggests precarious work will increasingly become the norm over the next decade. The survey from Randstad Canada predicts an “immense shift” to what it describes as “agile employment and non-traditional workers.” And it sees this as a good thing. "Canadians, and especially millennials, are re-thinking their approach to employment, which is changing the way that employers look to fill their staffing needs," Randstad Canada CEO Marc-Étienne Julien said in a statement.

A new report from Randstad Canada predicts a "massive shift" to "non-traditional employment" in the coming decade. (Photo: Getty Images) "New technologies and new attitudes towards employment are having a profound effect on how the workforce will look in 2025. This shift in thinking and the willingness of young Canadians to eschew the traditional nine-to-five for non-traditional roles will dramatically change the makeup of the workforce over the next decade." The survey estimated that 20 to 30 per cent of jobs in Canada today are “non-traditional,” meaning temp work, contract work or self-employment. The survey squares with some other research suggesting a trend towards precarious work. In the three years following the financial crisis of 2008-09, growth in temp work tripled that of permanent work in Canada. Temp agencies a part of the problem? Randstad Canada may have a reason to promote this narrative — the company is Canada’s largest temp agency, and stands to gain from a shift to contract or temporary workers. In fact, Canada’s largest private sector union, Unifor, has identified temp agencies as part of what it sees as a problematic shift to precarious work. "Temp agencies not only benefit from, but also drive predatory employment practices that target immigrants and women of colour disproportionately,” said Jerry Dias, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, in a statement issued last week.