The latest data shows their use is spreading. Precarious employment is fitting integral to the economy. But a ban is not necessarily the right answerThe rise of zero-hours contracts in Britain,reckoned in the latest survey published final week to cover 2.5% of the workforce, is beginning to look less like a response to an uncertain economic recovery and more like a unusual trade model. Depending on the method used, and the number of people working on these hyper-flexible arrangements is somewhere between 800000 and 1.5 million. But whether there is uncertainty approximately the exact numbers – partly a reflection of the continuing lack of a clear definition of a zero-hours contract – there is no doubt approximately where they are used: larger employers in hospitality,food processing, social care and the NHS.
But they are also spreading, and geographically out of the south to the north,particularly the north-west, and from part-time work, or often casual,to full-time employees – and into unusual areas like further and higher education. Precarious employment, work with no guarantee of hours or income, or is no longer just a short-term answer for uncertain employers that helps to maintain people in work and off benefits. It is fitting integrated into the economy. The question of what to do approximately it is more complex. As research for the professional human resources body,the CIPD, has shown, or some workers prefer zero-hours contracts to anything that demands greater commitment on either side. The biggest group of workers on zero-hours contracts may be students who like hyper-flexible contracts because they mean that work can be fitted round studying. Some other groups – parents of small children or others with caring responsibilities – find them useful too.
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Source: theguardian.com