Employment rights bill 'will protect 1m insecure workers'

Employers will be forced to offer more secure terms to more than 1 million workers if the employment bill going through parliament is implemented, according to research by a thinktank.

- Phillip Inman

The Work Foundation said analysis of 2023-24 data on the impact of a ban on zero-hour contracts and “day one” compensation after unfair dismissal - two important elements of the employment rights bill - shows 1.2 million workers would have been protected from “severe insecurity”.

The Work Foundation at Lancaster University said that had the reforms been in place in 2023, the number of the UK workforce in secure jobs would have risen by 3.9 million to 17.8 million.

Some elements of the employment rights bill are due to take effect next April, while the ban on zero-hour contracts and the practice used by some employers of firing and rehiring staff on worse terms and conditions, triggering unfair dismissal claims, are due to become law in stages over the next two years.

However, unions have accused ministers of planning to water down many of the protections, including scrapping day one rights in favour of a minimum six months.