What is the most popular type of digital work platform?
Nearly 700,000 Canadians performed paid work through digital platforms in 2024, according to a report from Statistics Canada (StatCan).
Overall, 675,000 people engaged in digital platform work last year, accounting for 2.3% of the population aged 15 to 69.
South Asian Canadians had the highest rate of involvement, with 5.2% engaged in digital platform work. Black Canadians followed at 4.3%, and 3.1% of Chinese Canadians reported participating.
By contrast, Canadians who were neither racialized nor Indigenous reported a much lower participation rate of 1.6%.
Immigration status was also a factor. Recent immigrants, admitted within the past five years, were more than three times as likely (5.8%) to work through digital platforms as individuals born in Canada (1.6%).
Gender disparities were also evident, with 2.9% of men participating compared to 1.7% of women.
In the fourth quarter of 2022, 2.4 million Canadians had done a form of gig work in the previous 12 months, according to a previous report from StatCan.
Delivery of food or other goods was the most popular digital platform work among Canadians in the previous year by far, according to StatCan’s Labour Force Survey, December 2024.
Offering personal transport services and selling goods online was also popular among Canadians. Meanwhile, far fewer turned to tutoring, text editing and proofreading, and offering medical and childcare services online.
(Numbers in thousands)
More than half (53.4%) of workers in Canada have a side hustle by selling goods through e-commerce, according to a previous report from omnisend.
Around nine million Canadians say they are part of the gig economy, and many are not filing taxes, according to a previous report from H&R Block.
