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- Title
An anatomy of zero‐hour contracts in the UK.
- Authors
Koumenta, Maria; Williams, Mark
- Abstract
We present the first attempt to locate zero‐hour contract (ZHC) jobs—jobs that lack a guaranteed minimum number of hours—within theoretical frameworks of the employment relationship and occupational class and empirically explore their characteristics using successive UK Labour Force Survey. In line with these theories, we find this contentious form of employment to be strongly differentiated by the nature of occupational tasks and to overlap with nonstandard employment features (e.g. part‐time and temporary). They are also highly concentrated in a small number of occupations and sectors, with over half of ZHC jobs found in just 10 occupations. We further show that ZHCs are associated with indicators of inferior job quality such as low pay and underemployment. Although we find no evidence that ZHCs are a particularly pervasive feature of the UK labour market, further growth cannot be ruled out in certain occupations.
- Subjects
ZERO hour contracts; UNDEREMPLOYMENT; QUALITY of work life; LABOR market; WORKING hours
- Publication
Industrial Relations Journal, 2019, Vol 50, Issue 1, p20
- ISSN
0019-8692
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/irj.12233