Precarious work and zero-hours contracts

Precarious work and zero-hours contracts sit at the centre of this video for 7HR01 Strategic Employment Relations, which addresses AC 2.4 on analysing the changing nature of work across different parts of the economy. The video examines why precarious employment has grown so markedly in the UK, tracing the interconnected roles of globalisation, competitive market pressures, technological change, and shifts in employment protection legislation and trade union influence. Atkinson's flexible firm model features directly, with its distinction between core and peripheral workers and the concepts of functional and numerical flexibility used to frame how organisations have restructured their staffing strategies. The rise of employment intermediaries and platform-based gig economy arrangements are also positioned as enabling mechanisms behind this broader shift.

The video gives particular attention to zero-hours contracts as one of the most visible expressions of precarious work, covering the defining characteristic of absent mutually guaranteed hours and the consequent transfer of risk from employer to worker. Their sectoral concentration — including hospitality, retail, health and social care, education, and arts and entertainment — is examined alongside evidence of their spread into other parts of the economy. The competing arguments around zero-hours contracts are worked through in balanced terms, including the flexibility benefits cited for students and carers alongside the power imbalances, income unpredictability, and compulsion dynamics that critics highlight. UK regulatory responses, including the banning of exclusivity clauses and extensions to worker rights, are covered as part of this discussion.

The video closes by connecting these labour market developments to the strategic concerns of senior HR professionals, including the ethical dimensions of managing a mixed-status workforce, employer brand considerations, and the practical employment relations challenges that arise when precarious arrangements become embedded across an organisation. The framing throughout reflects the Level 7 expectation that practitioners engage with the structural and institutional forces reshaping work, not merely the contractual mechanics of individual employment arrangements.