Companies shift to flexi-workers
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Official figures reveal a massive shift towards a flexible British workforce with the number of temporary employees shooting up by more than 40 per cent in three years.
The growing demand for flexibility by companies has meant that the number of temporary workers now stands at nearly 1.7 million, the latest Labour Force Survey shows.
Unpublished statistics from the National Association of Citizens' Advice Bureaux (NACAB) also reveal a growing "feel-bad" factor among the new flexible workers. The organisation's centres all over Britain have seen a 31 per cent rise in inquiries relating to employment since 1988, and in the last 12 months nearly 700,000 people complained.
Sean Roberts of NACAB, interviewed for BBC2's Public Eye programme which is being televised at 8pm tonight said that people were "paying the price" for the greatly deregulated labour market. "This idea of flexible working means that people are losing rights they used to have. There is no protection now against low pay."
The right wing Institute of Directors is also showing signs of concern. Ruth Lea, head of policy at the institute, told BBC2 that flexibility gave Britain a distinct competitive advantage. However she conceded that some employees had been victims. "What has tended to happen is that people with relatively few skills have found the labour market working against them because there were too many of them [looking for the same work]."
But Ms Lea opposes a statutory national minimum wage as planned by the Labour Party. "If the minimum wage were put at anything like a reasonable figure, say pounds 4 an hour, then inevitably that will start to price people out of jobs, especially where people are paid badly."
John Monks, general secre-tary of the TUC, told Public Eye that "zero- hours contracts" were becoming more popular, where employees are kept on call but are only paid when they work. He said that companies were taking advantage of high unemployment in many parts of the country, and that zero-hours contracts were clearly exploitative.
Mr Monks added that unemployment was rising in some of the sectors where low pay was prevalent and, at the same time, wages were falling. People worked long hours, but remained in poverty.
The taxpayer, he said, was subsidising bad employers through the benefits system.
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