风萧萧_Frank
以文会友
加拿大祖母每周工作70小时，每月付完帐单所剩无几
随着生活成本不断飙升，越来越多加拿大人被迫打多份工以维持生计。
纽芬兰和拉布拉多省居民杨凯莉（Kelly Young，音译）每周不得不工作70小时，以养家糊口和支付账单。她白天在St. John's的一家小型工程公司担任行政人员，晚上和周末在餐馆兼职当服务员。
然而，即使在一个两口家庭中同时兼顾三份工作，杨和她的丈夫每个月在支付账单后也几乎所剩无几。
“你总是有点落后，”杨疲惫地说。“就快到了不得不偷东西来还债的地步。”
“你每天想的事情只有你的收入。我们仿佛一辈子都在支付房租，支付抵押贷款，支付账单......”她说。这让她每晚彻夜难眠，焦躁不安。
“我想就在那时，我意识到我需要找到第二份工作，”她说。“只是为了增加我的收入，能够轻松支付那些账单，这样我晚上可以安心入睡。”
杨和她的丈夫（一名钣金工人）曾经离开纽芬兰，向西迁徙寻找更高薪的工作，并在阿尔伯塔省定居了四年。
“那里的经济非常好，”杨回忆道。“税收低得多。汽油价格为每升0.89元。你无法找到比这更划算的了。”
但当杨的大女儿有了第一个孙子时，家人把他们带回了家乡。她说：“在疫情之后，一切费用都在飙升，回到这里，实际上对我们的系统造成了冲击。”
自从回来之后，她一直在跳槽，总是在更高的薪水和更好的福利之间换来换去。但他们每月的租金达到1800加元，而且她的女儿们有时需要帮助，杨除了更多地工作之外别无选择。
“当你去买菜时，你绝对不会买牛排，”她说。“你绝对不会像以前那样购买一些额外的蔬菜。你买的是那些真正经济实惠的东西。”
杨停顿了一下，然后笑了。
她说：“我们的餐桌上多了许多热狗。”
杨从未想到自己会在当祖母的时候还在辛苦工作，并看着她所爱的人努力维持生计。她说，她的女儿也有两份工作。
“一切的成本都如此之高，以至于孩子们现在无法真正享受生活。他们所做的一切就是为了生存，”她说。
而且，长时间的工作已经削减了她与家人在一起的宝贵时光。
她说，她和她的丈夫“就像夜间航行的两艘船”，他们没有时间一起放松，就连周日也充满了琐事和家务，而且这通常是他们一周中买菜和洗衣服的唯一时间。
杨很庆幸她没有经历低收入群体遭受的那种困境，但她真的累了。
像杨一样，越来越多的加拿大人为了维持生活必需品而从事多份工作。
加拿大统计局2023年 8月的一份报告描绘了个人财务的惨淡景象：三分之一的人现在从事不止一份工作，因为他们需要这样做，以支付食物和住所的费用，而不是出于选择。
四年前，这一比例为五分之一。
上个月发布的Abacus Data调查对纽芬兰和拉布拉多省500名受访者进行了调查，结果也传递了严峻的消息：77%的受访者表示，他们要么靠工资过活，要么负债累累。
经济学家：倦怠会带来社会成本
达尔豪斯大学经济学家Lars Osberg表示，过度工作会产生连锁反应。
有时，人们会接受额外的工作，因为他们想为大额开支储蓄，或者是因为他们喜欢从事某项工作。如果这是你为了维持生计不得不做的事情，情况就完全不同了。这种情况在现如今更加频繁地发生。
过度工作会导致家庭内部的压力增加，离婚率上升。它也让家庭之间的交流时间变得有限。
“当那些兼职工作的人无法参加社区活动，无法照顾他们的孩子...对整个社会来说都会带来巨大的代价。”
来源链接：https://twitter.com/KathleenBurt55/status/1721607677099332018
This grandmother works gruelling 70-hour weeks just to pay the bills. And she's not alone
Kelly Young part of ballooning demographic forced to find second job
Malone Mullin ·
Kelly Young plucks a vacuum-sealed packet of ground beef from her fridge. For once, she has time to cook. She'll have dinner ready by the time her husband is home from a long day.
"I'll make steaks out of that," she says, pointing to the hamburger meat and smiling as if to say, it's better than nothing at all.
Wry humour — and unrelenting optimism — are helping Young survive the post-COVID economy that Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have found themselves in.
That, and a superhuman work ethic: Young is clocking 70-hour weeks to maintain her standard of living, moonlighting as a server after long days at her St. John's office, where she's an administrator for a small engineering company.
But even juggling three jobs in a two-person household, the Youngs hardly have wiggle room after the bills are paid.
"You're always kind of falling behind," Young says wearily. "Right to the point where you're robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Young is among a growing population of Canadians who work multiple jobs to pay for life's essentials. A Statistics Canada report in August painted a bleak picture of personal finance in 2023: one in three people who work more than one job now do it because they need to, in order to pay for food and shelter, as opposed to doing so by choice.
Just four years ago, that number was one in five.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, a potent cocktail of inflation and rising interest rates even prompted the premier to send an open letter to the Bank of Canada in September, pleading with governor Tiff Macklem to halt rate increases.
"The continued raising of interest rates from the Bank of Canada is … significantly impacting homeowners with mortgages, those aspiring to become first-time home buyers, those looking to rent, students, seniors, families, and businesses," Furey wrote. "Families and businesses cannot afford the crushing impact of any further interest rate hikes."
In the House of Assembly in October, PC MHA Barry Petten told the legislature he'd just gotten a call from a family looking for a fourth and fifth job to support their children. "They're not looking for luxury," Petten said. "They're just trying to feed their kids."
An Abacus Data poll of 500 respondents in Newfoundland and Labrador, published last month, also delivered grave news: 77 per cent of people surveyed said they were either living paycheque to paycheque or falling into debt.
?In the prime of her life, this woman had to take another job — just to pay the bills
Living is more expensive these days.
In Newfoundland and Labrador, on average — for all items listed in the Consumer Price Index — it's exactly 4.1 per cent more expensive than last fall, and 25 per cent more costly than a decade ago. Food, shelter and energy are the primary culprits.
It's all led to a squeeze for those who used to comfortably make ends meet.
"Living a middle-class life has been our whole lives," Young says. "You pay your rent, you pay your mortgage, you pay your bills."
But these days, those same expenses haunt her. "All you think about is your income," she says. It would keep her awake in bed, tossing and fretting.
"I think that's when I realized I needed to find a second position," she says. "Just to top up my income and to pay those bills comfortably, so I can go to sleep at night."
'A shock to our systems'
It's a story so common for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians it seems almost like a prototype.
The Youngs left Newfoundland for better paying jobs, heading west and settling in Alberta for four years after Young's husband, a sheet metal worker, was laid off in Newfoundland. "The economy up there was so good," Young recalls. "Taxes are much lower. Gas price is $0.89 a litre. Like, you can't beat that."
But family brought them back home when Young's oldest daughter had her first grandchild. "Coming back here after COVID and the cost of everything skyrocketing, it was actually a shock to our systems," she says.
A customer browses beef and other meat selections at a Colemans grocery store in St. John's. (Paul Daly/CBC)
She's job-hopped since returning to the island, always trading up for a higher salary, better benefits. But with their rent in Flatrock at $1,800 a month, and her daughters sometimes needing a hand, there was little Young could do except work more.
She picked up a serving job on weekends and evenings. Without it, "there would not be any extras," she says. Not fresh food, or even takeout on a Friday evening. Certainly no more Sunday drives.
"When you go get groceries, you're definitely not buying steak," she says. "You're definitely not buying those extra veggies that you could before. You were buying things that you could really learn to spread out."
Young pauses, then smiles.
"There'd be more hot dogs on our dinner plate," she says.
Burnout has societal costs, says economist
Overwork causes a ripple effect, says Lars Osberg, an economist at Dalhousie University.
Sometimes, people take on extra jobs because they want to save for a big expense, or work at something they enjoy.
But "it's a fundamentally different situation if that's what you have to do to make ends meet," Osberg says. "And that's what more and more people of normal working age, that's the situation they find themselves in more and more often these days."
Overwork leads to stress within families and higher rates of divorce. It leaves little time for families to connect.
"When people who are juggling all these jobs can't participate in community activities, can't take care of their kids … it has big costs for society in general."
Young can attest. The long hours are already cutting into precious moments with her family. "Quality time? You almost need to write it in the schedule book," she says.
Young leaves her nine-to-five on a Wednesday afternoon in October. (Malone Mullin/CBC)
Young and her husband are "like two ships passing in the night," she says. There's no time to relax together; Sundays, the day they used to spend lounging, are now filled with errands and chores. It's often the only time to get groceries and clean their clothes.
"When you don't see each other as much as you would like, it is difficult," she says.
"To come home after a long day at work and he's already in bed. You get your shower and get cleaned up and you jump in and … you feel that cuddle next to you and that warmth. You know, it's everything. And that kind of gives you the reason to know what you're doing, why you're doing it. To have that to come home to."
Young says she can only comfortably afford the food her family used to eat because she picked up a serving job. Even so, she still finds herself cutting corners. (Malone Mullin/CBC)
Young's grateful she's not experiencing the kind of hardship now battering the lower income brackets. A social butterfly by nature, she even finds serving fulfilling. Her second job is a way to avoid downsizing, and to afford the small extras that, for Young, make life worth living.
But she's tired. And never thought she'd be in her mid-50s, toiling away, watching her loved ones just try to tread water. Her daughter works two jobs, too, she says.
"But why should she have to? It's my question, right?" Young says.
"The cost of everything is just so severe that the kids are not living these days. All they're doing is working to survive."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Malone Mullin is a reporter in St. John's who previously worked in Vancouver and Toronto. News tip? Reach her at malone.mullin@cbc.ca.
