Young workers more likely to work zero hours

New data from the Work Foundation think tank shows the number of young workers on zero hours contracts has reached a new record.

And it warns that after a decade of indecision over the contracts, the UK has fallen behind and it’s the younger generation who are paying the price.

Zero choices: swapping zero-hour contracts for secure, flexible working reports that 136,000 more workers were given zero hours contracts in 2023 compared to 2022, with two-thirds of these (65%) given to 16- to 24-year-olds.

The Work Foundation highlights the potential long-term effects this could have on the quality of job young workers may secure in future. Three in four of the 1.1 million people on zero hours contracts in the UK face contractual and financial insecurity and a lack of access to rights and protections.

Alice Martin, the Foundation’s head of research said: “The data shows these contracts affect certain workers more than others, and it is young workers — particularly young women — who are bearing the brunt of policy-makers’ inaction.”

She said the UK needs to “catch up with the rest of the world” when it comes to zero hours contracts.

The TUC continues to call for a ban on the contracts, warning that hundreds of thousands of workers are being trapped in low pay and insecurity, with bad employers “parking workers on zero hours contracts for years on end”.