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Zero Hours Contracts

Answer

The independent Office for National Statistics (ONS) use the Labour Force Survey (LFS) to provide estimates for the number of people in employment on contracts that do not guarantee minimum hours (known as ‘zero hours’ contracts’). This data is available for the Oct-Dec quarter only for each year from 2010 to 2018 and is set out in the table below.

Table: Level and rate of people aged 16 and over on zero-hours contracts October to December each year

UK, not seasonally adjusted
Percentage of people in employment on a zero-hours contract
2010	0.6
2011	0.6
2012	0.8
2013	1.9
2014	2.3
2015	2.5
2016	2.8
2017	2.8
2018	2.6
Source: ONS Labour Force Survey
The estimates for 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018 are considered precise

ONS advise that the increased media coverage of zero-hours’ contracts arrangements in the latter half of 2013 may have affected the response to this question by raising awareness of this existing type of contractual arrangement. The ONS therefore advise not to compare pre- and post-2013 data.

Data for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and the English regions has been published every six months by ONS for since 2016. However, because the data is drawn from a survey, many of these sub-UK breakdowns are considered too unreliable for practical purposes. Regional data and guidance on its reliability can be found in tab 4 of table EMP17 published here:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/datasets/emp17peopleinemploymentonzerohourscontracts/current

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

4937

Session

2019-19

Subjects

Employment Zero hours contracts

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk