Zero hour contracts

Recently, most employers find “Zero hours” contract of employment more suitable for their business. The reason behind this could be that employers are trying to find cost-effective ways of meeting short term staffing needs. Some employees would prefer having a Zero hours contact rather than having a set hour contact where the employee will have to work the hours that the business has required them to do. Zero hour contract might suit employees who may think about wanting occasional earning not fixed as they don’t have to work the set amount of hours. Employees who are contracted zero hours receive lower gross- weekly pay average of £240 per week, then if we compare an employee who might be contracted fixed hours, would most likely earn an average of £480 per week. We can see there is a huge difference in an employee who might be contracted to a fixed hour contract and is guaranteed that they will be get paid more whereas an employee who is on zero contact is not guaranteed that they will get paid that much as the organisation will only call the employee if they need to.
I strongly disagree about employers providing their employees with zero hour’s contract. This is because there is no certain level of regular earning that provides any certainty over making bills for example living expenses where the employee might have to pay rent and living cost such as food. Also doesn’t help an employee think or plan their future. Furthermore zero hour contact can cause huge stress to the employee as they need to respond to the calls to attend work quickly and moreover leads into a very short notice. If we take an employee who is a mother with young children’s as an example we can see that if the organisation gives that employee a short notice, then the employee might find it hard to arrange someone to look after her kids which can cause a lot of worry and stress. The inconsistency of earnings from the employee throws into doubt a person’s entitlement to claim several forms