Experts say zero hour contracts lead to a rise in mental health, debt & poverty

Experts in the department of sociology at Cambridge University believe that there is a flaw in the health and safety mechanism in the work place. PHD candidate Alex Wood, alongside Professor Brendan Burchell of Cambridge says:

Health and safety in the work place should also include an employees mental health.”

“The problem at hand is way bigger than zero hour contracts, employees stress levels are rising and many are developing serious mental health issues such as depression and anxiety.”

Other serious issues draw from the supposed ‘flexibility’ of these zero hour contracts.

There is no sense of stability, inability to plan expenditure and furthermore leading to debt and even worse poverty”

Zero hour contracts has become a widespread issue throughout not only the UK but also in the US.

According to the Office of National Statistics the amount of people in the UK on zero hours contracts has risen from a 0.84% in 2012 to 2.0% in mid 2014. This is the largest fluctuation over the past 10 years.

Zero hour contracts are understood to be an employment contract between an employer and a worker, which means the employer is not obliged to provide the worker with any minimum working hours, and the worker is not obliged to accept any of the hours offered.

In hindsight this sounds great having a job where you can decide whether you want to take the hours offered to you or not, but in reality it’s not as flexible and easy as it sounds on paper.

In the UK people on zero hour contracts are guaranteed a merely 4 hours of work per week which clearly is not enough to survive.

It affects many people’s lives negatively as they are unable to make much plans in their life in regard to spending time with their families and not being able to make social plans with their friends.

As we draw closer to the near approaching the elections in May some political parties have made promises to make changes to cure this widespread epidemic of zero hour contracts.

Ed Miliband on numerous occasions has promised that the next Labour government will bring in new laws giving workers a regular contract if they are working regular hours, the right to refuse demands to be available outside their contracted hours, and compensation when shifts are cancelled at short notice.

Vince Cable, of the Liberal Democrats has also spoken up about this issue in mid 2014 when he urged employers and trade unions to review these contracts and expose loopholes which are not in the best interest of the workers.

However the Conservatives have not really offered much solution to this problem.

Wood believes that the abolishment of zero hour contracts is not the answer.