Employment Insecurity in North Tyneside

Employment is up across the UK, but large numbers of people are in work situations that offer little security, impacting their mental health, finances, and benefits. North Tyneside Citizens Advice explains why:

Although the number of people in work across the UK has increased across 2018,¹ a significant proportion² of those people are still in situations with little employment security, either working short-term jobs with little protection from dismissal or on zero-hours contracts.

Being in insecure employment has been shown to have detrimental effects on people’s mental health³ and to leave them more likely to incur debt.⁴ As shown by previous figures we’ve released, mental health problems are likely to complicate both debt problems and any other issues people may be facing.

Insecure employment also creates particular problems for people claiming Universal Credit under new benefits rules – the fact that Universal Credit is paid in arrears based on the claimant’s previous monthly earnings means that any claimant on fluctuating wages or who has recently left employment can face long periods of time without receiving any income.

ONS figures from April 2018 also show that zero-hours contracts disproportionately affect women and the under 25s:

‘For October to December 2017:

• women make up a bigger share of those reporting working on “zero-hours contracts” (54.7%), compared with their share in employment not on “zero-hours contracts” (46.8%)
• people who report being on a “zero-hours contract” are more likely to be at the younger end of the age range; 36.0% of people on “zero-hours contracts” are aged 16 to 24 years, compared with 11.4% for all people in employment not on a “zero-hours contract”’

Employment insecurity affects hundreds of people across North Tyneside. In the 2017-2018 financial year, we advised 449 local residents on dismissal from work, 187 on employment contracts and security, and 103 on redundancy.

If you’d like advice on your employment situation or any related issues, please contact us on 0344 245 1288, through our email contact form on this website, or by coming to our offices.

1: Office for National Statistics Labour Market Report, 11/12/18

2: ONS Report: Contracts that do not guarantee minimum hours, April 2018

3: UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies, July 2017

4: Stepchange, December 2015