Despite the positive consumer data we’ve seen in the weeks and months since Brexit, it’s clear that construction output and housebuilding is flat-lining.
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As a proportion of all people in employment, that represents an increase from 2.4 per cent to 2.9 per cent. The worker can also turn down the hours offered.
TUC general secretary Francs O’Grady hit out at the figures, arguing the contracts were an “easy way for bosses to employ staff on the cheap”.
The controversial contracts, under which workers do not know how many hours they will work from week to week, has been under the spotlight this week after retail giant Sports Direct said it would change arrangements for some of its staff.
While in recent years the increase in the numbers of these contracts has been attributed to an increased awareness of them, the ONS states it is not possible to quantify that influence on this occasion.
– Sign the petition against zero-hours contracts.
The number of zero-hours contracts appears to have increased sharply in the wake of the 2008-09 recession. Economists had expected a 0.5% fall.
But pressure is is now growing for Theresa May’s government to offer more protection to workers who have been on the contracts for more than a year and who work regular hours.
“Banning zero hours contracts outright is a misguided approach that risks penalising those workers, such as some students and those with caring responsibilities, who genuinely prefer the flexibility afforded by them. But the part they play in the wider issue of insecure working suggests that they need far closer, and more measured, scrutiny” said Conor D’Arcy of the Resolution Foundation think tank.
The Trades Union Congress, Britain’s largest union group, said its research showed a worker on a zero-hours contract earns 7.25 pounds per hour, as a median, compared with 11.05 pounds for a typical worker.
They are also likely to be younger, with 37 per cent of the zero-hours workforce aged 16-24.
Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: “People want job security as well as decent pay”.
“Being trapped within a zero hours lifestyle; by not knowing when you will next get another wage; by not knowing if you have enough money to survive until the next shift is in complete opposition to the values ingrained within the traditions of Celtic FC”.
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New TUC analysis published today shows that the typical United Kingdom employee earns 50% more an hour than a zero hours contract worker. This is compared to just 10% of those in other work.
