Unpredictable times: the extent, characteristics and correlates of insecure hours of work in Britain

• Date: 01 March 2020
• Author: Golo Henseke,Alan Felstead,Duncan Gallie,Francis Green
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12279

Unpredictable times: the extent,

characteristics and correlates of insecure

hours of work in Britain

Alan Felstead, Duncan Gallie, Francis Green and

Golo Henseke

ABSTRACT

This article presents new British evidence that suggests that cutting working hours at

short notice is twice as prevalent as zero-hours contracts and triple the number of em-

ployees are very anxious about unexpected changes to their hours of work. The pay of

these employees tends to be lower, work intensity higher, line management support

weaker and the threat of dismissal and job loss greater. In addition, the well-being

of these employees is lower and they are less committed to the organisations that em-

ploy them. However, the prevalence of insecure working hours is reduced by work-

place level employee involvement exercised individually or through collective

representation.

1 INTRODUCTION

The growth of zero-hours contracts (ZHCs), the increase in levels of underemploy-

ment and the rise of the gig economy are all features of the UK economy that have

triggered much academic debate (Lepanjuuri et al., 2018; Koumenta and Williams,

2019; ONS, 2019a). They have also become the focus of high and sustained media at-

tention. For example, ZHCs rarely featured in newspaper articles or Internet searches

prior to 2013, but since then, they have been the source of regular commentary

(Farina et al., 2019). ZHCs have also prompted interest from government about ways

of mitigating some of their worst effects (e.g. BIS, 2013; BEIS, 2019).

These labour market developments are all symptoms of increased attempts by em-

ployers to align the duration and timing of work to the peaks and troughs in demand.

As a consequence, working time has become more unpredictable for many workers

(Rubery et al., 2015). Not knowing whether, when and how much work they will ac-

tually get can create problems for the individuals involved. It can make it difficult to

pay the weekly bills and plan for the future, and it can weaken job-related well-being

(Citizens Advice, 2017).

In response, the Living Wage Foundation recently launched a Living Hours cam-

paign designed to provide workers with greater security over working time. The

❒Alan Felstead, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK, Duncan Gallie, Nuffield College, University of Oxford,

Oxford, UK, Francis Green, Institute of Education, University College of London, London, UK and Golo

Henseke, Institute of Education, University College of London, London, UK. Correspondence should be

addressed to Alan Felstead, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK; email: alanfelstead@cf.ac.uk

Industrial Relations Journal 51:1–2, 34–57

ISSN 0019-8692

© 2020 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribu-

tion and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Foundation accredits organisations that agree to pay the Real Living Wage (RLW) to

their direct employees and to those who normally work on their premises but are paid

by contractors (Prowse and Fells, 2016). However, the Foundation has recognised

that the unpredictability of working hours may mean that workers who receive the

RLW hourly rate of pay may not receive a decent wage if their hours are low

and/or are changed at short notice. Getting employers to provide Living Hours

alongside the RLW addresses this issue. In addition to paying the RLW, Living

Hours employers agree to (i) offer contracts that reflect actual hours worked and

guarantee a minimum of 16 hours a week and (ii) give employees at least four weeks’

notice of when they are expected to work and make payment in full if shifts are

cancelled (Living Wage Foundation, 2019). The first of these elements may receive

legislative backing with the UK government recently announcing that it plans ‘to

bring forward legislation that introduces a right for all workers to potentially move

towards a more predictable and stable contract’(BEIS, 2019: 10). The second ele-

ment, however, has so far not received government backing, but changes in this area

are under review.

Much of the associated empirical evidence and debate on insecure working hours—

including the Living Hours campaign—focuses on the details of employment con-

tracts and/or respondents’knowledge of what they contain. The approach presented

in this article widens the concept of insecure working hours by going beyond focusing

solely on the contractual form of the employment relationship (i.e. ZHCs) to include

actual experience of working hours being cut with little warning and anxiety about

unexpected changes to hours of work.

The remainder of the article is structured as follows. Section 2 reviews the existing

evidence on insecure working hours that has focused primarily on ZHCs. Section 3

outlines the data sources, methods used and approach taken to generate a wider set

of evidence. Where possible, this new evidence is set alongside data taken from the

Labour Force Survey (LFS) on ZHCs. This new evidence is taken from the Skills

and Employment Survey (SES) 2017 and questions it asks about employees’experi-

ence of cuts being made to their weekly working hours and how anxious they feel that

their working hours might be changed unexpectedly by their employer. Section 4 uses

both data sources to present findings on the extent, characteristics and correlates of

four different measures of insecure working hours. Section 5 concludes by arguing

that if policy makers are serious about creating good work, more attention needs to

be paid to reducing the prevalence of unpredictable working hours rather than just fo-

cusing on formal aspects of the employment contract.

2 EXISTING EVIDENCE

In this article, we focus on two aspects of working time.

1

The first is the duration of

time spent at work. This involves setting the daily, weekly or annual number of hours

to be worked and establishing whether the employer is at liberty to increase or de-

crease these totals. The second aspect is the timing of work. This refers to when during

the day, night, week or year work is performed. When combined, these two concep-

tual dimensions constitute a work schedule detailing how long work lasts and when

it takes place (Berg et al., 2004).

1

However, there are other dimensions of working time not covered here, such as the extent to which

workers can vary working hours to meet their own needs (Eurofound, 2012).

35Insecure hours of work in Britain

© 2020 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd