The UK government is pressing ahead with new requirements for employers to offer workers a contract guaranteeing their regular hours after three months on the job despite warnings from business that it will worsen youth unemployment.
In a consultation published on Tuesday, the government said its preference was for workers to be offered a new contract giving them “a baseline level of security and predictability” if they regularly worked longer than their contracted hours during an initial 12-week period.
Workers will qualify for the new right if they are on zero or low-hours contracts, and the government said it was minded to set the threshold for low hours between eight and 20 hours.
The new right to guaranteed hours is one of the most contentious elements of the Labour government’s sweeping upgrade of workers’ rights. It is intended to fulfil a pre-election pledge to ban “exploitative” zero-hour contracts that can leave workers unsure of how much they will earn from one week to the next, making it hard to budget or take out a mortgage.
However, the consultation, which was already delayed, makes it clear many details have yet to be decided, let alone implemented. These include how quaranteed hours will be calculated, how to handle seasonal work and what happens after the initial 12-week period.
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