Globalization and the rise of precarious employment: the new frontier for workplace health promotion.

Global market integration over the past three decades has led to labour market restructuring in most countries around the world. Employment flexibility has been emphasized as a way for employers to restructure their organizations to remain globally competitive. This flexibility has resulted in the growth of precarious employment, which has been exacerbated by the global financial crisis and resulting recession in 2007/2008, and the ongoing economic uncertainty throughout much of the world. Precarious employment may result in short and long-term health consequences for many workers. This presents a deeper and more structural determinant of health than what health promoters have traditionally considered. It calls for a different understanding of workplace health promotion research and intervention that goes beyond enabling healthier lifestyle choices or advocating safer workplace conditions to ensuring adequate social protection floors that provide people with sufficient resources to lead healthy lives, and for advocacy for taxation justice to finance such protection.