M II A II R II K
Senior Member
The Geography of Service Work in Toronto
August 26, 2010
Read More: http://www.martinprosperity.org/media/pdfs/Toronto_election_series-Geography_of_Service_Class.pdf
http://www.martinprosperity.org/insights/insight/geography-of-service-work-in-toronto
The Martin Prosperity Institute organizes the labour force into four occupational groups for analysis: the creative class, the service class, the working class, and the fishing, farming, and forestry class (visit martinprosperity.org/terminology for full definitions). This categorization system is a useful way to think about the economy because it classifies workers based on the type of work they are paid to do, rather than simply their qualifications.
Creative class workers are paid for their thinking and problem solving skills. Service class workers are paid to perform routine work directly for, or on behalf, of clients. Working class workers are paid to maneuver heavy machinery and perform skilled trades. Farmers, fishers, and other primary extractors are paid to extract natural resources from the ground and seas. Service class workers all relate to their jobs in the same fundamental way, but they work in a diverse array of environments and industries. Included in the service class are health care support workers, food preparers, building grounds cleaning and maintenance workers, administrative assistants and security guards.
Our Institute is engaged in an ongoing research project on Toronto’s service class. It seeks to build demographic profiles of service workers across the city, and also to understand how Toronto could cultivate a competitive advantage in service work. To this point, the Institute has put together a basic demographic profile of the city’s service workers and convened discussions with local service employers, government officials, academics, and other key stakeholders about how employers in the city can improve the job quality, creative content and productivity of routine-oriented service workers.
Despite this recent round of attention, it has generally been the case that of the four occupational groupings, the creative class has courted the majority of the political attention. Policymakers, concerned with the city’s relevance in the age of the “knowledge economyâ€, have engaged in initiatives to attract and retain members of the creative class. Here in Toronto, the focus of the reports Imagine a Toronto: Strategies for a Creative City (2006) and the MPI’s provincial strategy document Ontario in the Creative Age (2008) testify to the cachet of creative work in local policymaking circles.
This mayoral brief aims to expand the limited local policy discussion around service work. The brief aims to add to our understanding of service workers in Toronto by answering the question, “Where is Toronto’s service class?†Toronto’s service class is the largest segment of the city’s workforce—making up about 45% of total workers—but where can these workers be found?
Related questions are:
• Are service jobs evenly diffused throughout the city or are they concentrated in
specific areas?
• Do service workers collocate with other workers?
• How connected are service workers to transit?
These are the central questions associated with the geography of the service class. As we shall see, they are questions that highlight important issues for much of Toronto’s workforce.
The creative class has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. From policymakers to the popular press, city boosters have been engaging in initiatives to attract and retain creative class workers for nearly a decade now. But a full occupational analysis actually organizes the labour force into three main groups:
Of Toronto’s 531 census tracts (depicted here), the service class makes up the plurality of the workforce in 70%. These areas are widely distributed across the city, from parts of central Toronto to Etobicoke to North York to Scarborough. Creative class jobs, on the other hand, tend to be more heavily clustered in a small number of neighbourhoods. Picture office towers, high-tech hubs, and arts districts.
August 26, 2010
Read More: http://www.martinprosperity.org/media/pdfs/Toronto_election_series-Geography_of_Service_Class.pdf
http://www.martinprosperity.org/insights/insight/geography-of-service-work-in-toronto
The Martin Prosperity Institute organizes the labour force into four occupational groups for analysis: the creative class, the service class, the working class, and the fishing, farming, and forestry class (visit martinprosperity.org/terminology for full definitions). This categorization system is a useful way to think about the economy because it classifies workers based on the type of work they are paid to do, rather than simply their qualifications.
Creative class workers are paid for their thinking and problem solving skills. Service class workers are paid to perform routine work directly for, or on behalf, of clients. Working class workers are paid to maneuver heavy machinery and perform skilled trades. Farmers, fishers, and other primary extractors are paid to extract natural resources from the ground and seas. Service class workers all relate to their jobs in the same fundamental way, but they work in a diverse array of environments and industries. Included in the service class are health care support workers, food preparers, building grounds cleaning and maintenance workers, administrative assistants and security guards.
Our Institute is engaged in an ongoing research project on Toronto’s service class. It seeks to build demographic profiles of service workers across the city, and also to understand how Toronto could cultivate a competitive advantage in service work. To this point, the Institute has put together a basic demographic profile of the city’s service workers and convened discussions with local service employers, government officials, academics, and other key stakeholders about how employers in the city can improve the job quality, creative content and productivity of routine-oriented service workers.
Despite this recent round of attention, it has generally been the case that of the four occupational groupings, the creative class has courted the majority of the political attention. Policymakers, concerned with the city’s relevance in the age of the “knowledge economyâ€, have engaged in initiatives to attract and retain members of the creative class. Here in Toronto, the focus of the reports Imagine a Toronto: Strategies for a Creative City (2006) and the MPI’s provincial strategy document Ontario in the Creative Age (2008) testify to the cachet of creative work in local policymaking circles.
This mayoral brief aims to expand the limited local policy discussion around service work. The brief aims to add to our understanding of service workers in Toronto by answering the question, “Where is Toronto’s service class?†Toronto’s service class is the largest segment of the city’s workforce—making up about 45% of total workers—but where can these workers be found?
Related questions are:
• Are service jobs evenly diffused throughout the city or are they concentrated in
specific areas?
• Do service workers collocate with other workers?
• How connected are service workers to transit?
These are the central questions associated with the geography of the service class. As we shall see, they are questions that highlight important issues for much of Toronto’s workforce.
The creative class has garnered a lot of attention in recent years. From policymakers to the popular press, city boosters have been engaging in initiatives to attract and retain creative class workers for nearly a decade now. But a full occupational analysis actually organizes the labour force into three main groups:
Of Toronto’s 531 census tracts (depicted here), the service class makes up the plurality of the workforce in 70%. These areas are widely distributed across the city, from parts of central Toronto to Etobicoke to North York to Scarborough. Creative class jobs, on the other hand, tend to be more heavily clustered in a small number of neighbourhoods. Picture office towers, high-tech hubs, and arts districts.
