Younger workers most optimistic
If they lost their job tomorrow, 58 per cent of working Canadians said they could easily find work in their field with comparable compensation, according to a poll by Ipsos Reid.
Younger workers are the most likely (61 per cent) to think they’d be able to find work in their field, while middle-aged (59 per cent) and older workers (47 per cent) are less likely to think so, found the survey of 1,005 Canadians.
Workers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba (73 per cent) are most likely to think they could find another job with comparable pay, followed by those in Alberta (64 per cent), Quebec (63 per cent), British Columbia (59 per cent), Atlantic Canada (54 per cent) and Ontario (49 per cent).
However, workers appear less confident, overall, that their skills could land them another job in a different field, with comparable compensation. Forty-three per cent said they could easily find work in a different field, with comparable compensation, while 57 per cent disagreed.
While 51 per cent of younger workers think they could find this kind of work, only 40 per cent of middle-aged (40 per cent) or older (37 per cent) workers said the same.
Regionally, residents of Saskatchewan and Manitoba (65 per cent) are most confident they could find another job, even in another field, followed by those living in Quebec (49 per cent), B.C. (45 per cent), Atlantic Canada (39 per cent), Alberta (39 per cent), and Ontario (36 per cent).
Two-thirds (66 per cent) said they “work just as hard — not harder or less hard — than they did when they were younger,” found the survey, with workers of all ages falling close to the national average. One quarter (23 per cent) of Canadians said “they work harder now than they did when they were younger” with those 18-34 (29 per cent) most likely to say this, compared to those 35-54 (19 per cent).
Only 11 per cent said they don’t work quite as hard now as they did when they were younger but workers aged 55 and older (16 per cent) are the most likely to think this way while those aged 18 to 34 (six per cent) are the least likely.
