Polygon Created with Sketch. Home | Research

Getting Beyond Non-Standard Employment: Sustainable livelihoods for Indigenous communities in Northern Canada

Understanding how to support Indigenous workers in Canada’s North to achieve more sustainable livelihoods.

Natural resource development presents important opportunities for Canada’s northern Indigenous peoples. In northern Canada, there are also increasing expectations that territorial, regional, and Indigenous public service organisations will hire and retain staff from surrounding northern Indigenous communities. Yet despite these opportunities, Indigenous workers across northern public and private sectors tend to be concentrated in non-standard forms of employment, characterized by part-year and part-time positions with limited career prospects.

An image of the northern lights.

This project will examine the major push and pull factors that create non-standard employment conditions for Indigenous labour in northern Canada. It will also identify career pathways and supports that have helped northern Indigenous workers achieve sustainable livelihoods. The project will apply a mixed methods approach including a review, survey and interview research, and labour market modeling. The resulting research will illustrate how Indigenous workers across northern Canada navigate non-standard employment conditions. This project will therefore produce insights of immediate and long-term relevance to the economic self-determination of Indigenous workers in northern Canada.

View More Research

A mother working from home embraces her young child
Research

The Impact of Having Children on Careers

The findings of this report address two related issues. The first concerns the penalties women face when they become mothers, notably loss of employment income and diminished career opportunities. The second is the concern that younger adults in Canada today may be less interested than previous generations were in having children.
Research

Supporting Mid-Career Workers with Disabilities

This project, Supporting Mid-Career Workers with Disabilities, focused on addressing the employment barriers that persons with disabilities, particularly those aged 35 to 49, face in Canada.
man using laptop in cafe
Research

Evidence-based Insights for Public Service Professionals Navigating the Workforce of the Future

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC) created an online platform, called Navigar, to better prepare its over 70,000 members for the future by providing future-oriented career information.
View all Research