Future of work

Job quality is increasingly recognized as an important factor for workers’ health, safety and wellbeing. As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more integrated into workplaces, a new project, the Partnership on AI and Quality of work (PAIQ), wants to ensure that job quality—and the health and safety of workers—remains a top priority. The team recently came together to kick off the next seven years of work.

Published: January 2026

By 2040, the future of work and health will be shaped by rapid transformations across technology, climate, the economy, politics and society. This evolving landscape will present both urgent challenges and critical opportunities for practitioners and policy-makers promoting the health, safety and wellbeing of the working population. This report applies strategic foresight methods to explore a wide range of plausible futures and their potential implications for workplaces and their workers. It helps to anticipate what’s coming, question assumptions and build more adaptive, equitable and resilient approaches to promoting worker health, safety and wellbeing.

Published: January 2026

Published: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, December 2025

Published: Systematic Reviews, December 2025

The rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) within Canada’s labour market can drive innovation and raise productivity. But the benefits of AI may vary according to the characteristics of workers and their occupations. In the absence of direct measures, examining the impact of AI on work and workers can be challenging. In this presentation, Dr. Arif Jetha discusses the use of different measures of “AI exposure” as a tool to study the technology’s impact on different groups of workers, who vary according to gender and educational attainment. The study also describes differences in the impact of AI according to occupational differences including job skill requirements and job quality. Insights from this presentation can be used to direct research attention and strategic responses towards occupations and worker groups most likely to be affected by AI.

Published: November 2025

Published: Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, November 2025

Canadian adults who work from home report the same levels of mental health, life satisfaction and stress as those who work on-site at a workplace, or at no fixed location (on the road). That’s according to a study of survey data from almost 25,000 Canadians in 2022, after work-from-home arrangements became more common.

Published: October 2025

Machine learning is being adopted by more and more Canadian workplaces. Given this technology’s ability to learn, adapt and generate work outputs, it also has the potential to perform job tasks in place of humans. But which workers might be most affected by the use of machine learning? An IWH study explores this question.

Published: July 2025

Published: Systematic Reviews, July 2025

Published: Social Science & Medicine, June 2025