Young people are unlikely to access secure employment unless employers can be persuaded to look beyond the bottom line, says Professor Kate Purcell

Zero-hours contracts are a symptom of employers’ increasing reluctance to pay the full costs of the reproduction of labour, in a culture that celebrates the flexibilities of the “gig economy” and where the government finds it necessary to pay benefits to low-income families, implicitly subsidising employers who find it expedient to promote flexible and part-time working and pay low wages.

A point not made in your article (Three in four workers cannot count on fixed monthly pay, 15 October) is that young people are most susceptible to the fragmentation of jobs that zero-hours working reflects. In our recent ESRC-funded research on young people’s transitions from education to employment, we found that the opportunities faced by virtually all the young jobseekers with low or no educational or vocational qualifications we interviewed were confined to low-paid, zero-hours work, mainly through temporary work agencies.

These young people, confined to their local labour markets and mostly unable to move from family-subsidised accommodation, are unlikely to access more secure or sustainable employment unless employers can be persuaded or coerced by government policies to look beyond the immediate bottom line and take greater responsibility for the longer-term welfare of workers and communities.

Professor Kate Purcell

Institute for Employment Research, University of Warwick

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