Shift workers have higher levels of dissatisfaction: report

Canadians who do shift work report lower levels of satisfaction with their work-life balance, according to a recently released study from Statistics Canada.

While 22.6 per cent of people who worked a regular day reported being dissatisfied with their balance between their work and personal lives, the percentages were higher for people working on shift.

Percentages of shift workers who said they were dissatisfied ranged from 23.1 per cent of evening shift workers to a high of 37.7 per cent of shift workers who were on-call or casual. Statistics Canada said night-shift workers reported a 27.2 per cent level of dissatisfaction, while split shift workers came in at 32.6 per cent unhappy with their work-life balance.

"Interestingly, all shift workers were more likely to cut back on sleep when they needed more time, and were more likely to worry about not spending enough time with family," wrote Cara Williams, the author of the report.

The study is based on 2005 data. In that year, approximately 28 per cent — roughly 4.1 million people — of the 14.6 million employed Canadians worked on something other than a regular day shift.

Rotating and irregular schedules were the most common types of shift work, accounting for roughly 2.3 million full-time workers "even though these are considered among the most difficult shifts because the body cannot properly adjust to the sleep pattern changes, rotating child care is difficult to find and health effects can be profound," Williams wrote.

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