Labour banging on about zero-hours contracts ...

[fullyautomatix]

The civil service don't help an economy to grow. The suck the life force out of it. Currently needs to be chopped in half.

What will the people in Scotland do then ? Pretty much everybody has been given a public sector job by Labour.

[minestrone]

Britain actual has just about the lowest level of temporary jobs in the EU.

Employers are actually very committed to employing people permanently here, it is an invention to say otherwise but it gets said a lot.

[minestrone]

What will the people in Scotland do then ? Pretty much everybody has been given a public sector job by Labour.

Wife already had one, they just trebled her wages instead.

[Euler]

Wife already had one, they just trebled her wages instead.

She should enjoy it, probably the last of her generation to do so.
GPs are in the class of jobs ripe for automation.
If symptoms are described accurately and correctly, computer software can already make a far better diagnosis than a human.

[pjclarke]

You're conflating agency work, zero hours and self-employment.
These are not all the same thing. Typical of lefty disingenuousness.
Some of those categories are quite high-paid.
My 2.3% figure (which is about 680000, nowhere near the vague 5 million figure you made up) came from this right-wing rag

2.3% means it's not a massive problem.

Indeed it would, but dig deeper

New estimates show that the number of people employed on zero-hours contracts reached 697,000 in the fourth quarter of 2014, up from 586,000 during the same period a year earlier. The figures,*published by the Office for National Statistics*(ONS), are an estimate of people who are employed on zero hours contracts in their main employment, and come from the Labour Force Survey. By the end of 2014, the total number of people employed on zero hours contracts represented 2.3% of total in employment.

[…]

An estimate published in the second ONS survey of businesses, put the number of contracts that do not guarantee a minimum number of hours at 1.8m (work was carried out in the fortnight beginning 11 August 2014). The difference between the business survey and LFS, say the ONS: “will partly be accounted for by people who have more than one ‘zero-hours contract’ with different employers or who have a ‘zero-hours contract’ to supplement their main employment.”

So nearer 6% on this definition, and a survey by Unison found 5 million people or 18% on deals that offer little or no guarantee of work and pay.

Which is why, in my 'disingenuous' way, I said 'depending on your definition and which survey you believe'

You're conflating agency work, zero hours and self-employment.
These are not all the same thing.*

I never said they were, but there is a large degree of overlap, no? I can see a campaign on Job Security, Zero hours contracts (and their lookalikes), and the Living Wage playing well amongst a large sector of the electorate.

[fullyautomatix]

Wife already had one, they just trebled her wages instead.

In socialist utopia, everybody deserves a pen pushing job and trebling of wages every year. The population is happy, the men in power are happy. The risk is when the money runs out, but thats a trivial byproduct right ?

[scooterscot]

What will the people in Scotland do then ? Pretty much everybody has been given a public sector job by Labour.

Clearly England is taking the pi$$

[Batcher]

What will the people in Scotland do then ? Pretty much everybody has been given a public sector job by Labour.

Typical Daily Fail reader view from England.

[Euler]

Indeed it would, but dig deeper

.

I did.

The Guardian article says:
"As many as 5.5 million Britons could be signed up to work contracts that promise them less than three hours of work a week, five times more than existing estimates, new figures suggest.

A survey of 5,000 members of Unite, Britain's biggest union representing more than 1 million people, found that 22% of workers employed by private businesses had deals that offered little or no guarantee of work and pay.
"

So a survey of 5000 UNITE members, hardly an unbiased random sample of the working population as a whole, has been used to extrapolate to the working population.
Also we don't know how the survey was designed - it may have been that the wording was such that only zero-hours contracts people responded.
I'd prefer it if it was disingenuousness, but sadly it's likely to be the gross innumeracy of journalists that leads to such whoppers.
That's why I believe statistical literacy should be compulsory from primary school.

PS Statistically its not the number in the sample, 5000, that's the problem it's the biased nature of it.

[d000hg]

Indeed, most of the increase in employment this parliament has been at the insecure end of the spectrum, agency work, zero hours and self employment

That's in direct contradiction of what Cameron said on TV last week. He said the bulk of new jobs were traditional full-time employment.

Of course it might not be true, but he said it clearly several times, which suggests he feels safe it won't be ripped apart.