IPPR: Zero-Hours Threshold Risks the Wrong Workers

The UK’s Institute for Public Policy Research warned on August 14 that the government’s planned guaranteed-hours protections for zero-hours workers could exclude the workers most exposed to financial hardship, depending on where ministers set the eligibility threshold. The consultation, open until August 25, is weighing a “low-hours threshold” of 8 to 20 hours a week, below which workers would not qualify for guaranteed-hours rights.

IPPR’s analysis found that non-fixed-hours workers who regularly work 20 to 30 hours a week are 73% more likely to fall behind on bills than comparable workers on fixed-hours contracts, a group concentrated in retail (32%) and public services (31%). Under the government’s preferred 8-to-20-hour range, roughly half of non-fixed-hours workers, about 10% of the total UK workforce, would be covered. IPPR is pushing for a 30-hour threshold instead, which its modeling puts at closer to 60% coverage, or 13% of the workforce. IPPR research fellow Joseph Evans argued the current proposal misses people working close to full-time hours who still have no certainty what they will earn week to week.

Why it matters for the HR leader: this consultation closes in eleven days, and the final threshold will set the compliance bar for every UK employer running variable-hours or on-call scheduling. A 20-hour threshold and a 30-hour threshold are not a rounding difference; they determine which slice of an employer’s flexible workforce suddenly qualifies for guaranteed-hours obligations.

The original insight: employers currently modeling zero-hours exposure against the government’s own 8-to-20-hour preference are modeling against the low end of a range IPPR argues understates who needs protection, which means the compliance cost employers are currently forecasting is closer to a floor than a ceiling.

Source: IPPR