opendemocracy | Vulnerable employment, with workers experiencing high levels of
precariousness, is a global phenomenon. The ILO projects global growth
in vulnerable forms of employment to grow by 11 million a year. The impacts of this are being felt across developed, emerging and developing countries.
In the UK, much concern about the changing labour market has been
framed in terms of the shift in risk that has occurred between employers
and individuals. The gig economy is often used to epitomise the
imbalance in power between those controlling the technology, and those
carrying out the tasks:
However, this shift of risk reaches far beyond Uber drivers and
millennials on bicycles. It can be seen in the use of contracted, agency
and temporary staff and in the unpredictability of zero and minimum
hours contracts of those working for supermarkets, in warehouses, in
social care and in universities.
The impact of this on people’s lives is exacerbated by a parallel
transfer of risk in the systems set up to support those who are
unemployed or in low paid work. At the same time as work has become less
predictable, the safety net has become less springy and with bigger
holes.
This shift can be seen in cuts to social security, in the changes and
increasing conditionality that universal credit brings, in the way jobs
are measured and impact on poverty is not. It is seen in adult learning
and the introduction of adult learner loans. It is also seen in a
childcare sector that does not have the capacity to offer care to those
with unpredictable or non-standard hours, even though those are the jobs
increasingly likely to be available for those on low pay.
