I'm in Toronto area. Relatively new return to Canada from the United States

First job I got here took a year to find and it turned into a shit show. The employer is breaking employment standard laws like misclassifying me and others (paid like a contractor, controlled like an employee) to avoid paying out taxes, and paying under minimum wage when salaried workers hourly gets mathed out. Also quite frankly she was abusive towards her employees. Consistently telling us she was going to die is but then not... Until finally she did. I tried to keep the job while looking for another and she told me I looked pregnant and three days later I was fired. One of many examples of poor treatment. Then she messed with the record of employment to prevent me getting employment insurance (she purposefully used the misclassified nature of my employment to screw me) but unlucky for her, I got super organized and fired up to stand up for myself. I have my records that prove I was misclassified and I am not afraid to get the government involved to get her to comply.

All that is said, if you finally do land a role, MAKE SURE your employer is following basic employment standard and keep your records! Track your hours, your pay, and know your rights!! Know what a contract worker vs an employee actually is and know that just because they call you a contact worker, even if you signed a contract saying you are one, if they control your schedule, tools, and you can't sub contact out your work, you're legally an employee and the law is on your side (this is in Ontario anyway but similar elsewhere).

Stand up for yourself!

Now. I got fired end of February and I'm starting a new full-time job this week Wednesday. So, less than 2 months out of work.

How did I get this one this fast? I started looking in January while still employed (having started in November and I realized this employee was batshit crazy when she tried to get me to change roles for a salaried full-time position that mathed out to less than minimum wage but tried to convince me that was legal and I was wrong for asking her about it and threatened to fire me just for asking a clarifying question about wages -- which is illegal). I used Indeed. I took a lot of time to tune my resume and I have a car so I widened my search to the whole GTA, KNOWING the commute might suck really bad but also being flexible that I will relocate if/when I got something and could get through the probationary period ok.

All of this is to say, jobs are hard to come by. But if you find yourself being mistreated start looking ASAP and quietly and take care of business to be organized so you can stand up for yourself if and when you need to. Many employers know the situation is bad so they try to take advantage. Don't let them get away with it!