Tracking the trends Spotlight: Working in a post-COVID world

Note: This is excerpted from the Tracking the Trends publication. 

Edmonton Social Planning Council (ESPC) has been producing Tracking the Trends since 1989. This report has tracked a number of social and economic data in order to provide a comprehensive overview of Edmonton’s social well-being and how it has changed over time. However, launched in 2021, ESPC began sharing the data traditionally reported in Tracking the Trends through our new Social Well-Being Tracker (the Tracker), which allowed us to update the data on a timely basis and provide new ways to interact with it.

As such, we have decided to discontinue Tracking the Trends in its original format, and instead use this report as an opportunity to take a critical look into our indicators. The indicators presented through Tracking the Trends, and now through the Tracker, are meant to investigate different elements of social well-being. However, social well-being is complicated. How do these indicators relate to well-being? What factors, not shared on the Tracker, influence this relationship? What are these numbers really showing?

Through this new Tracking the Trends report, each issue will spotlight one section of the tracker, and dive into how that particular set of indicators influences well-being. For this first edition, ESPC will take a look at employment trends. While increased employment rates have traditionally been seen as an indicator of increased community well-being, this edition will take a critical look at some of the systemic forces that influence these trends. When employment increases, what jobs are people getting? Are they stable and secure? What are typical working conditions? How does work make people feel? How does work influence one’s personal life? All these questions influence people’s well-being at work and into their lives in general.