| The traditional nine-to-five job is still the most common form of employment - but often in name only, according to new research by the Policy Studies Institute. |
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Although they are not required to do so by the terms of their contract, more than half of all employees now work variable hours every week. This is more than double the proportion in the mid 1980s and is mostly due to the growth in paid and unpaid overtime rather than the growth of flexible forms of employment contracts. |
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The report, Employers' Use of Flexible Labour by Bernard Casey, Hilary Metcalf and Neil Millward, examines how employers adjust their labour supply to meet the requirements set by the products and services they produce. It found that variable hours have become common across the workforce in all sectors of industry and in white collar as well as blue collar jobs. |
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Other forms of flexible labour, such as the use of short-term contracts, have also increased - but much less dramatically. Indeed, the number of workers employed in this way remains small. In manufacturing, for example, the latest figures suggest that as few as four per cent of workplaces qualify as high' users by employing over five per cent of their workforce on short-term contracts: 93 per cent did not use this form of employment at all. A similar pattern emerges in the service sector, where only four per cent of workplaces were high' users. Only the public sector tells a different story: 44 per cent of schools had over five per cent of their staff on short-term contracts. |
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New forms of employment, such as zero-hours contracts', are still comparatively rare. Few employers combine different forms of flexible labour: only four per cent of workplaces, for example, use both short-term contracts and freelancers. |
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The study, which was commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment, involved analysis of the Labour Force Survey, Workplace Industrial Relations Survey and case studies in 24 workplaces in six industries which have experienced substantial growth in flexible labour practices: clothing; oil refining; metal goods; hotels and catering; business services; and health. |
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The increase in flexible hours and temporary contracts has been greater in large and medium sized workplaces than in small ones - contradicting the widely held view that small companies have been in the forefront of moves towards flexibility. Instead, the impetus towards flexible employment patterns has been provided by global competitive pressures and by policies within a public sector faced by budget constraints. |
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Employers use widely differing patterns of flexible labour. Among the factors influencing the use of flexible labour and the precise form it takes are variations in demand for the product; the relative importance of labour costs; external labour market constraints; and the wishes of employees. However, decisions can also be determined by management fads' or inertia and the weight of past ways of working. |
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Such inertia has helped perpetuate gender stereotyping in the workplace, suggest the authors. Some employers, for example, assign all overtime, shift and night working to men and all temporary and part-time work to women. There is also a tendency to address labour shortages by raising pay for men but by changing working-time arrangements for women. The result will tend to increase pay differentials between women and men. |
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Future economic pressures are likely to put employers under growing pressure to adopt flexible working practices. Labour shortages resulting from economic upturn might restrain the use of more exploitative patterns, but increasingly global competition will continue to exert pressure. Changing patterns in consumption, demanding prompt delivery and round the clock availability, will always be important, as will new management fashions. |
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Bernard Casey says: 'There has been much talk about the growth of exotic forms of flexibility - temporary and zero hours contracts and sub-contracting - but the real change hasn't been here. What has changed is at the margins - employers need a few more hours here or there, and employees give this, sometimes for pay, sometimes not, and sometimes for matching time off. Such flexibility is vitally important to business success but it goes largely unsung. It is also the sort of flexibility which the European working time directive should in no way prejudice.' |
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'We have been repeatedly told that employees' need for job security has to be sacrificed in the interest of competitiveness' says Hilary Metcalf. 'This study shows this is rarely necessary. Employers have choices: some can smooth fluctuations in production and maintain permanent employment with regular hours; most others can produce efficiently by combining full-time and part-time work with small variations in hours. Few need to turn to temporary working or to major fluctuations in hours - and in pay - to be competitive. Job and income security is rarely incompatible with business efficiency.' |
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'The rise in precarious forms of employment has gone hand in hand with the decline in union influence in Britain' says Neil Millward. 'Strong unions - where they exist - have been able to resist the use of short-term contracts and freelance workers by many employers; but they are also associated with the extensive use of paid overtime.' |
ENDS
| Contact: | On: |
| Neil Churchill | 0171 468 2236 (office) 0374 756 920 (mobile) |
| Bernard Casey Hilary Metcalf Neil Millward | 0171 468 0468 |
Notes to Editors:
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