The Zero Hour Contract

Graham_Devon

There was a piece on newsnight about unemployment, and it started off with suggesting how the current figures are masked by far more self employed people, evidential increase in part time jobs, and something which I had never heard of until last night.....the zero hour contract.

Apparently 161,000 are known to be on zero hour contracts. This is a rise over over 200% since 2005.

A zero hour contract is when you are officially employed, but with no guarentee of any work. The people involved in the programme would get a text message at some point in the day stating they are either required or not.

One mcdonalds employee suggested he got told mid morning or mid afternoon that he was required for all manner of shifts, sometimes not even giving him enough time to physically get there....but he never got any routine normal shifts.

I'm really uncomfortable with this, as the government will relax regulation further for contractual employment in September in order to make it easier for business to emply individuals. Zero hour contracts are the result of previous deregulation. The idea is firms won't be scared to hire people as they don't have to give them any work. They can sack them with no comeback, but they do have to give 3 months notice. However, they do not have to provide any work in those 3 months.

The government suggest this allows business to expand and take risks. Others suggest this allows exploitation of the employee, the employment figures etc.

There may not be many confirmed zero hour countracts now, but as the article pointed out, along with the self employed (many of whom have no choice but face the same issues with employers who want to keep them freelanced) and along with part time figures, the unemployment figures become less of a reliable barometer of employment as we move through the months.

Generali

Presumably this cuts both ways though. There will be many on a zero hours contract who are good at what they do and thus get full time work as a result.

From what the OP suggests about the Newsnight program, these people would be described as in part time work despite working full time.

As the last 30 years have shown us, if you want high unemployment and especially high youth unemployment, make it impossible to get rid of staff. French youth unemployment over the past 30 years has been a scandal, basically because their parents keep voting to have their own nests feathered.

seven-day-weekend

My son now has a permanent 24-hour contract at a major supermarket, but in his last job he only had an eight hour contract and some poor souls had zero hours.

It is also difficult to get another part-time job as you have to be available for 35 hours/store opening hours in case you are called to work.

Scandalous.

Graham_Devon

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

My son now has a permanent 24-hour contract at a major supermarket, but in his last job he only had an eight hour contract and some poor souls had zero hours.

It is also difficult to get another part-time job as you have to be available for 35 hours/store opening hours in case you are called to work.

Scandalous.

Yes, this is the problem. You have to be available at any notice. Think the lady on the programme had to be available 6 days a week, but some weeks could get no work at all.

As part of the contract you are not able to work for anyone else. The interviewer sat with one women at 11.30, as that's the time she gets told whether she's required or not at the factory. They called it "employment by emoticon".

The text message simply stated "Hi, Today you have a day off." She commented "today I have no money for food" or something similar if I recall.

ash28

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

My son now has a permanent 24-hour contract at a major supermarket, but in his last job he only had an eight hour contract and some poor souls had zero hours.

It is also difficult to get another part-time job as you have to be available for 35 hours/store opening hours in case you are called to work.

Scandalous.

When my niece was at university she had a zero hours contract with Asda in her home town - suited her - she just let them know when she was at home on holiday and they gave her work. It meant she didn't have to look for a job every university holiday period.

I think zero hours contracts are becoming more and more popular with employers (obviously) and are absolutely crap if you need regular hours and regular money.

Generali

Don't forget there are about 27,000,000 employees in the UK so only half of one percent of people are employed in this way.

FTBFun

Generali wrote: »

Don't forget there are about 27,000,000 employees in the UK so only half of one percent of people are employed in this way.

Also they all appear to be in retail, a sector which has had plenty of problems lately, and so IMO the growth of these contracts isn't a massive surprise.

bugslet

As an employer I am naturally in favour of less regulation in employment law, it's too complicated and too time-consuming for a small business.

In theory, my business would be ideal for a zero hours contract. Our work is highly variable in volume on a weekly basis and being able to call people in as and when I wanted, would be beneficial to the bottom line. However, I've always said that I'm in this for the long haul and employee relations has been important, and my job is to get work, their's is to drive the trucks. I don't see why they should pay if I fail to supply them with work. It's probably one of the reasons why we have had only one industrial relations problem in twenty- one years and that over 50% of the work force have been here for over 10 years.

There will be some people that suit a zero hours contract, but if it is totally variable on start and finish times, and some weeks you only get a couple of hours, it's purely to my way of thinking, getting the employee to take the risk and not the employer. I think I'm a bit old-fashioned really.

CLAPTON

a zero hour contract is a contract you choose to sign

it suits some people who have several jobs and so select which ones they choose to do.

Wheezy_2

Generali wrote: »

Don't forget there are about 27,000,000 employees in the UK so only half of one percent of people are employed in this way.

That's half of one percent too much then.:)
I never heard of zero hour contracts before and am shocked such a thing exists in the UK anno 2012.
I realise a balance needs to be found between flexibility for the employer and protection for the employee, but this swings way too much in the employers' favour.

purch

Retailers want to open for as long as possible. They will be campaigning hard to get the extended Sunday trading hours made permanent.

The costs of longer opening hours can be prohibitive of course, and the risk for the retailer is that longer opening hours, do not result in a large enough increase in sales to cover those costs.

As usual it will be the employees who will be expected to take some of that risk.