Canada’s Labour Force Survey (LFS)

reporting widespread feelings of insecurity and with good reason. Canada's labour force is becoming more precarious with the growth of temporary and part-time wage work, own-account self-employment and other forms of employment that are not fully covered by labour laws and policies. At the same time, regardless of employment form, more and more workers are earning less money, working either too much or too little and have less control over their work. Many workers are also in precarious social locations because the growth of precarious employment is gendered and racialized. 2 What is a precarious employment relationship and how does precarious employment status manifest itself in the Canadian labour market? In what ways do social locations, such as sex/gender, race/ethnicity and age exacerbate or mitigate precariousness? These are the questions we address in this article. We begin by describing and evaluating terms commonly used to conceptualise and measure labour market insecurity. Our main contention is that 'precarious employment ' is the best concept available – preferable to 'non-standard work ' – since it adds important nuances to the standard/non-standard employment distinction (Vosk