Almost one in five women and 13 per cent of men said they have dealt with harassment in the workplace.
A report by Statistics Canada found that verbal abuse was the most common type of abuse workers faced. Ten per cent of those surveyed said they had been verbally abused, while five percent reported humiliating behaviour, which came in second.
The study was part of a partnership between Insights on Canadian Society and Statistics Canada's Centre for Gender, Diversity and Inclusion Statistics. Results were based on data collected from the General Social Survey on Canadians at Work and Home in 2016 and based on a sample size of 9,000 people. It defined workplace harassment as verbal abuse, humiliating behaviour, threats to persons, physical violence, and unwanted sexual attention or sexual harassment.
Of those who took the survey, workers in the health field were the most likely to report being harassed on the job. 23 per cent of workers in health-related occupations said they had been harassed, compared to nine per cent in applied sciences like information technology.
Managing Editor for Statistics Canada, Sébastien LaRochelle-Côté said there appeared to be a correlation between harassment and public interaction.
"We do know that there's a high degree of interaction with the public in those occupations. Another area where you see high levels of workplace harassment is in sales and services occupations," said LaRochelle-Côté "Customers and clients are a prime source of harassment in the workplace there's bound to be a connection."
LaRochelle-Côté hoped the study would show employers the importance of creating safe workplace.
Workers who suffered abuse on the job also reported higher levels of job dissatisfaction. More 20 per cent reported that they were dissatisfied. Less than five per cent of workers who had not suffered abuse reported job dissatisfaction.
The study also drew a line connecting harassment to poor mental health. 34 per cent of workers abused in the past year reported poor mental health, compared to 14 per cent of those who had not been harassed.
"For employers, I think one of the issues we found was that if somebody is facing workplace harassment then the employee is less likely to be more motivated and more likely to leave the job," LaRochelle-Côté. "The employers, with that information they will probably realize that a high degree of workplace harassment will lead to a high degree of turnover."
In 2018, harassment took centre stage in the media, with the #MeToo movement sweeping social media and Hollywood stars sharing their stories of abuse.
The results of the survey were collected before the movement, but LaRochelle-Côté said he and his team are eager to see what impact continued awareness will have on the next study.
