UK labour market: tending to zero

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/30/uk-labour-market-tending-to-zero

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On Tuesday, the Office for National Statistics reported that the UK economy had grown by a solid 3.1% over the previous year. On Wednesday, the same ONS threw frightening light on the nature of this recovery, by publishing new numbers suggesting that the 133% year-on-year increase in zero-hours contracts which it had already reported is not the end of the zero-hours story.

Instead of asking employees about contractual arrangements that many are fuzzy about, watchdog Sir Andrew Dilnot – himself set into action by Labour's Chuka Umunna – prompted the ONS to put questions about such no-strings hiring straight to businesses instead. This approach suggested that 1.4m "no guaranteed hours" contracts were in existence, pointing to a phenomenon of a quite different order from the 189,000 official estimated in 2011, a figure that had itself already shot up by 75% since 2008. The palaces of Westminster, Buckingham and even Lambeth have all been embracing the contracts, in keeping with many other British employers. For British employees, zero is one number that keeps getting bigger.

While the 1.4m figure will be swollen by some individuals holding more than one zero-hours position at once – this is a count of posts rather than people – this total undercounts in other ways. The ONS also identified 1.3m "contracts" that did not result in any work being done during the fortnight of the survey. Some will be staff who turned down shifts, others half-forgotten names on the book – but some will be semi-employed workers who spent the fortnight anxiously waiting for a call that never came. Even if the numbers are still not quite precise, it will no longer do to dismiss zero-hours working as something affecting a tiny proportion.

Instead, employers' groups shift the argument to the proclaimed advantages of flexibility, citing hi-tech whizzes whom it suits to come in and work a quick blast for a high fee, while retaining the flexibility to take time off with the kids or jet off the to the sun when work doesn't suit. There are, no doubt, some such people – a few. But Resolution Foundation analysis on Wednesday laid bare just whom zero-hours affects. Managers, professionals and, yes, techies too, are all under-represented. The great concentration is in caring, leisure and other "elementary" trades.

That leaves far more women than men working without knowing when. Youngsters are disproportionately affected, too, and especially those without college degrees. Students are another group said to value flexibility, but fewer than one in five is earning while studying for a better future. In recovering Britain, a growing number are instead simply working without security – or any end in sight.