IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/iza/izadps/dp12291.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Zero Hours Contracts and Their Growth

Author

Listed:
  • Farina, Egidio

    (Queen's University Belfast)

  • Green, Colin P.

    (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU))

  • McVicar, Duncan

    (Queen's University Belfast)

Abstract

This paper studies the prevalence and nature of zero-hours contracts (ZHCs) in the UK labour market. The headline count of ZHC workers based on the Labour Force Survey has long underestimated and continues to underestimate the number of workers in ZHC or ZHC-like jobs. ZHC jobs and workers are heterogeneous, but ZHC jobs have become increasingly concentrated among young workers, full-time students, migrants, black and minority ethnic workers, in personal service and elementary occupations, and in the distribution, accommodation and restaurant sector over time. Compared to other forms of employment, median wages in ZHC jobs have also fallen over time. The most common prior labour market state for ZHC workers is non-ZHC employment, particularly part-time employment, and we cannot reject that part of the reported growth in ZHCs has been driven by reclassification of existing employment relationships. Similarly, we cannot reject that growth in public awareness of ZHCs contributed substantially to recent growth in reported ZHCs, particularly over the period 2013/14.

Suggested Citation

  • Farina, Egidio & Green, Colin P. & McVicar, Duncan, 2019. "Zero Hours Contracts and Their Growth," IZA Discussion Papers 12291, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    • Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12291
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://docs.iza.org/dp12291.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Catrin Ormerod & Felix Ritchie, 2007. "Issues in the measurement of low pay," Economic & Labour Market Review, Palgrave Macmillan;Office for National Statistics, vol. 1(6), pages 37-45, June.
    2. Zivot, Eric & Andrews, Donald W K, 2002. "Further Evidence on the Great Crash, the Oil-Price Shock, and the Unit-Root Hypothesis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 25-44, January.
    3. Adams, Abi. & Adams-Prassl, Jeremias., 2018. "Zero-hours work in the United Kingdom," ILO Working Papers 994983192702676, International Labour Organization.
    4. Lamla, Michael J. & Lein, Sarah M., 2014. "The role of media for consumers’ inflation expectation formation," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 62-77.
    5. Lawrence F. Katz & Alan B. Krueger, 2016. "The Rise and Nature of Alternative Work Arrangements in the United States, 1995-2015," NBER Working Papers 22667, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Inga Laß & Mark Wooden, 2019. "The Structure of the Wage Gap for Temporary Workers: Evidence from Australian Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 453-478, September.
    7. Christopher D. Carroll, 2003. "Macroeconomic Expectations of Households and Professional Forecasters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 269-298.
    8. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    9. Thomas Prosser, 2016. "Dualization or liberalization? Investigating precarious work in eight European countries," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 30(6), pages 949-965, December.
    10. Egidio Farina & Colin Green & Duncan McVicar, 2020. "Zero Hours Contracts and Their Growth," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 507-531, September.
    11. Richard Murphy, 2020. "Why Unions Survive: Understanding How Unions Overcome the Free-Rider Problem," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(4), pages 1141-1188.
    12. van der Wiel, Karen, 2009. "Have You Heard the News? How Real-Life Expectations React to Publicity," IZA Discussion Papers 4064, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Richard Murphy, 2017. "Call my Rep! How Unions Overcame the Free-Rider Problem," CESifo Working Paper Series 6362, CESifo.
    14. Benjamin Edelman, 2012. "Using Internet Data for Economic Research," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 26(2), pages 189-206, Spring.
    15. Hielke Buddelmeyer & Mark Wooden, 2011. "Transitions Out of Casual Employment: The Australian Experience," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 109-130, January.
    16. Rosemary Lucas, 1997. "Youth, Gender and Part-Time Work-Students in the Labour Process," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 11(4), pages 595-614, December.
    17. Maria Koumenta & Mark Williams, 2019. "An anatomy of zero‐hour contracts in the UK," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 20-40, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Eva Padrosa & Mireia Bolíbar & Mireia Julià & Joan Benach, 2021. "Comparing Precarious Employment Across Countries: Measurement Invariance of the Employment Precariousness Scale for Europe (EPRES-E)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 154(3), pages 893-915, April.
    2. Haile, Getinet Astatike, 2023. "Precarious employment and workplace health outcomes in Britain," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 320(C).
    3. Rachel Scarfe, 2019. "Flexibility or certainty? The aggregate effects of casual jobs on labour markets," Edinburgh School of Economics Discussion Paper Series 294, Edinburgh School of Economics, University of Edinburgh.
    4. Egidio Farina & Colin Green & Duncan McVicar, 2020. "Zero Hours Contracts and Their Growth," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 58(3), pages 507-531, September.
    5. Andrew Smith & Jo McBride, 2023. "‘It was doing my head in’: Low‐paid multiple employment and zero hours work," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 61(1), pages 3-23, March.
    6. Avram, Silvia, 2020. "Zero-hours contracts: flexibility or insecurity? Experimental evidence from a low income population," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Vassilis Monastiriotis & Ian R Gordon & Ioannis Laliotis, 2021. "Uneven geographies of economic recovery and the stickiness of individual displacement," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(1), pages 157-178.
    8. Egidio Farina & Colin Green & Duncan McVicar, 2021. "Are Estimates of Non‐Standard Employment Wage Penalties Robust to Different Wage Measures? The Case of Zero‐hour Contracts in the UK," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 370-399, July.
    9. Farina, Egidio & Green, Colin P. & McVicar, Duncan, 2020. "Is Precarious Employment Bad for Worker Health? The Case of Zero Hours Contracts in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13116, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Emma Beacom & Sinéad Furey & Lynsey Hollywood & Paul Humphreys, 2021. "Conceptualising household food insecurity in Northern Ireland: risk factors, implications for society and the economy, and recommendations for business and policy response," SN Business & Economics, Springer, vol. 1(5), pages 1-22, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Egidio Farina & Colin Green & Duncan McVicar, 2021. "Are Estimates of Non‐Standard Employment Wage Penalties Robust to Different Wage Measures? The Case of Zero‐hour Contracts in the UK," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 60(3), pages 370-399, July.
    2. Avram, Silvia, 2020. "Zero-hours contracts: flexibility or insecurity? Experimental evidence from a low income population," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    3. Farina, Egidio & Green, Colin P. & McVicar, Duncan, 2020. "Is Precarious Employment Bad for Worker Health? The Case of Zero Hours Contracts in the UK," IZA Discussion Papers 13116, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Bennani, Hamza, 2018. "Media coverage and ECB policy-making: Evidence from an augmented Taylor rule," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 26-38.
    5. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller & Stephen K. Pollard, 2010. "Unit Roots and Structural Change: An Application to US House-Price Indices," Working papers 2010-04, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2010.
    6. Larsen, Vegard H. & Thorsrud, Leif Anders & Zhulanova, Julia, 2021. "News-driven inflation expectations and information rigidities," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 507-520.
    7. Antonio E. Noriega & Araceli Ramírez-Zamora, 1999. "Unit roots and multiple structural breaks in real output," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 14(2), pages 163-188.
    8. Ventosa-Santaulària Daniel & Gómez-Zaldívar Manuel, 2011. "Testing for a Deterministic Trend When There is Evidence of Unit Root," Journal of Time Series Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 2(2), pages 1-26, January.
    9. Salah Eddine Sari Hassoun & Khayereddine Salim Adda & Asma Hadjira Sebbane, 2021. "Examining the connection among national tourism expenditure and economic growth in Algeria," Future Business Journal, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 1-9, December.
    10. Dell'Anno, Roberto & Caferra, Rocco & Morone, Andrea, 2020. "A “Trojan Horse” in the peer-review process of fee-charging economic journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    11. EL BOUHADI, Hamid & OUAHID, Driss, 2014. "Datation des changements structurels au sein d’une chronique : le cas des séries macroéconomiques marocaines [Dating structural changes in time series : the case of the Moroccan macroeconomic serie," MPRA Paper 68168, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Tang, Chor Foon, 2011. "Tourism, real output and real effective exchange rate in Malaysia: a view from rolling sub-samples," MPRA Paper 29379, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Teti̇k, Metin, 2020. "Testing of leader-follower interaction between fed and emerging countries’ central banks," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 22(C).
    14. Alexeev, Vitali & Maynard, Alex, 2012. "Localized level crossing random walk test robust to the presence of structural breaks," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 56(11), pages 3322-3344.
    15. Balaji Bathmanaban & Raja Sethu Durai S & Ramachandran M, 2017. "The relationship between Output Uncertainty and Economic Growth-Evidence from India," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2680-2691.
    16. Anyikwa, Izunna & Hamman, Nicolene & Phiri, Andrew, 2018. "Persistence of suicides in G20 countries: SPSM approach to three generations of unit root tests," MPRA Paper 87790, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Dan H. Andersen & Hans-Joachim Voth, 1997. "Neutrality and Mediterranean Shipping Under Danish Flag, 1750-1807," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _018, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
    18. Saffet Akdag & Ömer İskenderoglu & Andrew Adewale Alola, 2020. "The volatility spillover effects among risk appetite indexes: insight from the VIX and the rise," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 49-65, April.
    19. Michael J. Lamla & Thomas Maag, 2012. "The Role of Media for Inflation Forecast Disagreement of Households and Professional Forecasters," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(7), pages 1325-1350, October.
    20. Shyh-Wei Chen, 2008. "Are 19 Developed Countries' Real Per Capita GDP levels Non-stationary? A Revisit," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 3(2), pages 1-11.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    atypical employment; zero hours contracts; no guaranteed hours contracts; casual work; precarious employment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J21 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Labor Force and Employment, Size, and Structure
    • J48 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Particular Labor Markets; Public Policy
    • M55 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Personnel Economics - - - Labor Contracting Devices

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp12291. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Holger Hinte (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/izaaade.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.