Zero hour contracts on the rise

The amount of people who said they were on a contract that guaranteed no minimum hours has risen to 801,000, according to the Office of National Statistics.

This covers 2.5 percent of the employed workforce in the UK, up from 2.3 percent in the same period of 2014.

ONS statistician Nick Palmer said: “This latest figure is rather higher than the 697,000 people who said they were on these contracts in late 2014.

“Though at least some of this increase may be due to greater public recognition of the term ‘zero-hours contract’, there’s also nothing to suggest this form of employment is in decline.”

Around one in three people (37 percent) on a zero hours contract wanted more hours.

In November 2015 there were around 1.7 million contracts that did not guarantee a minimum number of hours where some work had recently been carried out, according to the latest ONS survey of businesses.

For May 2015 the equivalent estimate was 2.1 million, though some of the difference between May and November could be caused by seasonal factors.