Latest ONS Figures Suggest That the Use of Zero Hours Contracts Has Fallen
...but campaigners have warned that insecure work is still a problem in the UK.
In November 2016, there were 1.7m zero-hours contracts in operation in the UK, which constitutes about 6% of all employment contracts. Zero-hours contracts have been widely used by larger companies in the hospitality, retail and leisure industries, including Sports Direct and McDonald's. A number of reasons have been attributed to the recent downturn in the popularity of zero-hours contracts, including record employment levels and the bad press received by companies who use them. This has meant that companies have struggled to attract workers if they do not guarantee a certain number of hours of work per week.
However, this latest trend may not tell the whole story, as insecure work remains an issue for many workers in the UK. Agency work, short-hours contracts and self-employment have all grown substantially in recent years, increasing the number of people in ‘atypical’ work. There is growing evidence that companies employ staff on short-hours contracts to avoid the bad publicity associated with zero-hours jobs. However, these contracts guarantee as little as one hour of work per week and, like zero-hours contracts, means that workers are subjected to the demands of their bosses with very little notice.
It is interesting that a majority of people on zero-hours contracts are either young, part-time, women or in full-time education. These groups of people are more likely to want and/or require greater flexibility around the way they work, however approximately a third of them would like to work more hours than they are offered, compared with 9% of people in employment who do not work on zero-hours contracts.
In an attempt to resolve these concerns, the Government has commissioned an inquiry, which is expected to be published in the next few months, that recommends employees on zero-hours contracts are given a right to request fixed hours, mirroring the 2014 legislation that full-time workers have the right to request flexible hours. Although every worker would be given the right to request fixed hours under this new arrangement, employers would also maintain the right to deny such request if there are good business reasons for doing so. This has been attacked by some unions for not going far enough to tackle the much documented problems associated with the 'gig-economy'. However, many people enjoy the flexibility that comes from being on a zero-hours contract and this suggests that such arrangements do still have a positive role to play in the modern labour market. Therefore, it is believed that individual workers, not employers, should have the right to choose between flexibility and fixed hours.
The Confederation of British Industry, which represents employers, has backed the move to fixed hours contracts, stating that:
"There is a mechanism for the individual to initiate a discussion where they want more flexibility, but not where they want less. A right to request fixed or more fixed hours should be introduced on the same basis as the right to request flexible working, as a more effective tool to address these issues, without undermining workers’ options or the enforcement of the minimum wage.”
We will continue to monitor the use of zero-hours contracts and the upcoming developments of the Government's inquiry, and will update when we know more about the substantive changes to this system.