Canadian workers face high physical and emotional demands: new StatsCan survey
Why It Matters
These findings from Statistics Canada highlight how job quality and workplace conditions are unevenly distributed, shaping workers’ health, safety, and long‑term wellbeing. Understanding these pressures is essential for employers, policymakers, and labour advocates working to build safer, more equitable workplaces.
Canadian workers are facing significant physical, emotional and time-related pressures on the job, according to a brand-new survey from Statistics Canada.
Exposure to ergonomic risks and long working hours are the most widespread challenges faced by workers, according to The Canadian Survey on Working Conditions, released Friday.
“Work environments can expose workers to different types of risks to their physical health,” reads the report.
“These include ambient risk factors (such as high and low temperatures and loud noises), biological and chemical risks (such as breathing in smoke and exposure to chemicals) and ergonomic risks (such as repetitive hand or arm movements and moving heavy loads).”
The survey was done repeatedly over a one-year period in 2024-2025.
More than half of Canadian workers (54.3 per cent) said they dealt with frequent exposure to ergonomic risk factors such as repetitive movements or heavy lifting.
These risks were especially common for those working in natural resources, agriculture and related production (74.9 per cent), trades, transport and equipment operators (74.5 per cent) and manufacturing and utilities (73.2 per cent).
Ambient risks—such as loud noise or extreme temperatures—affected 28.1 per cent of workers, while 17.8 per cent reported frequent exposure to biological or chemical hazards.
Healthcare workers were particularly affected, with nearly half (46.6 per cent) reporting regular exposure to biological and chemical risks.
Healthcare workers also reported the highest level of frequently dealing with angry or upset clients or patients.
About 35 per cent said they often had to deal with dissatisfied people, and women and younger workers were more likely to experience these emotional pressures than men and older workers, StatsCan said.
Workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher were the least likely to face physical risks, while those with a high school diploma or less were the most exposed.
While educated professionals are less exposed to physical risks, they’re most likely to work unpaid hours in their free time to meet job demands, said the report.
About 35 per cent of managers said they had to work for free to meet job demands.
Flexibility and support vary widely by industry
Only 6.3 per cent of employees said they could fully determine their own working hours, while 58.9 per cent had schedules set entirely by their employer.
Workers in professional, scientific, and technical services were the most likely to have flexible schedules (58.3 per cent).
About four in five employees reported strong support from colleagues and managers, though this varied by sector and demographic group.
Workers in construction and agriculture reported the highest levels of peer support, while those in health care and social assistance reported the lowest levels of managerial support.
However, racialized workers—including Black, Southeast Asian, and Arab employees—were less likely to report receiving frequent support from colleagues or managers.
Despite the challenges, most “workers in Canada felt that they were doing useful work most of the time or always,” said the report, with higher numbers for those working in healthcare, social assistance, agriculture and construction.
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