New CIPD research has suggested that there could be about one million zero hours workers in the UK - but just 14% report that their employer often fails to provide them with sufficient hours each week.
The figures are early findings from CIPD research designed to investigate the usage of zero hour contracts in different sectors, with a view to informing best practice guidance so that they are used for the benefit of both employers and employees.
Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest that approximately 250,000 people – less than 1% of those in employment - consider themselves to be on a zero hour contract. However, the new CIPD research suggests this may be an underestimate.
Data from the CIPD’s forthcoming summer 2013 Labour Market Outlook – based on a nationally representative survey of over 1,000 employers – show that:
- A fifth (19%) of employers said they employed at least one person on a zero hours contract;
- Employers in the voluntary sector (34%) and the public sector (24%) were more likely to use zero hours contracts than private sector employers (17%);
- The industries where employers said they were most likely to report they employed at least one person on a zero hours contracts were hotels, catering and leisure (48%), education (35%) and healthcare (27%);
- A quarter (25%) of organisations with 250 or more employees used zero hours contracts compared to 11% of smaller organisations with fewer than 250 employees;
- Among the fifth of employers who made use of zero hours contracts, the majority (54%) employed less than 10% of their workforce on these terms and the mean proportion of workers on zero hours contracts in these organisations was 16%;
- Based on this data, a best estimate would be that 3-4% of all the workers covered in this survey were on zero hours contracts, which would equate to about one million workers across the UK labour force.
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