This article will look at the current state of employment and how the situation of workers has changed over recent years, with an ever-increasing number struggling to make ends meet while in work, because they never find a secure job.
It is worth keeping in mind two factors which have impacted on jobs - the Covid-19 pandemic and Brexit. During the pandemic, mass furloughs, lay-offs and business closures - particularly in sectors such as hospitality and retail - meant that many workers did not return to permanent jobs. Instead, they were re-employed on more precarious terms, temporary, or zero-hours contracts.
The implementation of Brexit around the same time (officially imposed at the start of 2020), saw an exodus of European migrant workers from Europe which left many sectors - particularly the NHS and social care - with a severe shortage of hands.
So a contradiction exists: a severe skills shortage and, for instance, at least 238,000 vacancies in the health and social care sectors, while unemployment remains high - there are 9.23m "economically inactive" workers plus 1.61m "actively seeking work", that is 10.84m who are out of work and receiving state benefits - 25% of the working age population!
Many sectors, particularly those requiring skilled workers, fail to recruit enough staff. Of course, in many cases this skilled worker shortage is due to a chronic absence of apprenticeships and training, for which the bosses have only themselves to blame.
This article will also discuss some of the measures that Starmer's Labour government has taken in its first year in office, so as to be seen to deliver on its promise of economic "growth", and no matter the global economic recession! Its manifesto for instance, promised "greater in-work security, better pay" and an overhaul of "Britain's outdated employment laws [that] are not fit for the modern economy". Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is tasked with bringing in new employment regulations which she is meant to dress up as righting the wrongs of the Tory past.
And then there is the "Get Britain working" White Paper and its follow-up Green Paper, "Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working" - this latter, proposing to slash the welfare budget. It outlines measures to "deal with" the large number of "economically inactive" in receipt of benefits, in order to cut £5bn from welfare, targeting in particular the disabled and so-called NEETs - the 16 to 24 age group "not in employment, education or training". Apparently 4.2 million of the "economically inactive" claim health-related benefits, half of them again, due to mental ill-health or mental incapacity, an increase of 30% since 2019.
Why are there so many "economically inactive" workers?
To deal with the last first, that is, the workers who are unable to work due to ill-health. It should be obvious that if an unemployed worker of any age has no prospect of a decent job - and his/her life involves an endless revolving door of precarious jobs, that this will adversely affect physical and mental health, not least because of the low wages and endless gaps in employment (and therefore income-less periods while waiting for benefits to kick in) that this involves.
To counter the many voices, including that of Liz Kendall, cabinet minister in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP), that the increase in ill-health and mentally-ill claimants is due to shirking or laziness - and the slightly higher payment that incapacity benefits represent, compared to "ordinary" benefit payments - the Institute of Fiscal Studies has written several papers which not only look at "surveys" conducted by the ONS and other bodies, but also look at concrete health data, like mortality rates.
The IFS shows irrefutably that the health of the British population has declined post Covid and that therefore the increase in ill-health benefit claims correlates with this. An IFS report published on 12 March 2025 also shows that compared to the years before the pandemic, 2015 to 2019, there was a 5.5% increase in deaths of people of working age: 4,400 additional deaths. And quite shockingly, these additional deaths were mostly "deaths of despair"; that is, deaths due to suicide, alcohol and drugs. It concludes that since "people with mental health conditions are at higher risk of 'deaths of despair', this rise in deaths is consistent with an increase in (severe) mental health problems". Which means that the increase in benefit claims on mental ill- health grounds is not because of an increase in "shirkers", or to use Liz Kendall's words, young people "taking the mickey".
This is the quote from the conclusion of the IFS study: "We have found compelling evidence that mental health has worsened since the pandemic: more people are reporting mental health conditions in a range of surveys, a growing share of disability benefit claims are for mental health, there has been an increase in 'deaths of despair', and more people are in contact with NHS mental health services. While none of these pieces of evidence is dispositive [i.e., conclusive], they all point in the same direction, suggesting that deterioration in mental health is playing some role in the rising number of people claiming health-related benefits"
Where did all the jobs go?
As unemployment rates rise, so do the precarious terms on which workers are employed. Figures published by the HMRC (the tax office), published this May, show the biggest fall of pay-rolled employees since the end of the pandemic. There are 110,000 fewer than a year ago (out of a total 30.3 million in work, private and public sectors combined). Between February and March 2025 alone the number of pay-rolled employees fell by 47,000.
The Office of National Statistics (ONS) has reported that the official rate of unemployment for May 2025 stands at 4.5% - up from 4.4% last year. But this merely means that 1.61 million working-age people (16 to 64 years) were "actively" seeking work in the past four weeks - ignoring the real number of unemployed, which is, as indicated in the introduction, estimated at 9.23 million. The number of young NEETS has also increased over the past year from 877,000 to 987,000.
According to the ONS, 8.7% of the workforce are in temporary or casual jobs, that is 2.73 million - an increase of 10% since last year. This includes 1.17 million workers on zero-hours contracts, in fact 3.4% of the workforce!
These zero-hours "contracts" come without any benefits - not even guaranteed hours of work. In the past, jobs under such conditions would have been part of the "black labour market" - when workers would get paid cash "off the books" - while their bosses were in fact crooks avoiding HMRC. But they started to be used - usually by employment agencies - in the late 1990s and early 2000s. By 2013, there were calls for them to be banned after evidence emerged that a number of employers abused them. Sports Direct, in particular, gained some unwelcome publicity when it came to light that 90% of its workforce were on zero hours contracts. So it is certainly the case that they should have been banned long ago...
Overall, when part-time, temporary, or casual jobs are added up together, as many as 4 out of every 10 workers in Britain are in insecure, low-paid jobs. Small wonder there are so many working poor today; people in work who are living under the poverty line and who - if they are lucky enough to "qualify", rely on welfare payments to survive.
The government's "Get Britain Working" White Paper gives some data on this: "the West Midlands and the North West have the highest rates of in-work poverty at 22% and 20% respectively, these regions also had the highest rates of in-work child poverty at 33% and 30% respectively". A study done by the (Labour) Mayor's Office in London has shown that "there are now more people in poverty in London who are in a working family than in a workless family. The reverse was true 30 years ago". It also shows that "insecure forms of work such as part-time work and self-employment are linked to poverty" and moreover, that "working families with three or more children have seen their poverty rate increase sharply since the introduction of the two-child benefit cap on Universal Credit". Indeed: evidence one would think for the government to "scrap the cap". But like the winter fuel allowance for pensioners and other welfare cuts to come, this "reform" has fallen victim to Starmer's and Reeves' "tough choices" which are meant to show fiscal responsibility in front of the capitalist class and - they assert, hopefully - help to "grow the economy".
Overall poverty levels in the working class, if one adds to the number of working poor, the 2 out of 10 who are "inactive" and surviving on welfare benefits, would imply that as many as two-thirds of the working class is either permanently on the brink of destitution or already destitute!
A "skills shortage"?
The skills shortage which exists in IT, engineering, construction, and of course the NHS and the social care sector, where vacancies are of historic proportions, was undoubtedly exacerbated as a result of Brexit. But also because of clamping down on immigration by successive governments, in response to the reactionary anti-migrant far-right pressure, in and outside of, their ranks. This has resulted in ever more stringent restrictions on visas for immigrant workers - which penalise both the workers themselves and the prospective employers. And never mind the fact that the public health sector has always relied upon foreign nationals - who have been the backbone of the NHS - saving billions in training costs.
As for the other sectors, British employers invest half as much per employee in training compared to the EU average. This investment in training has fallen by nearly 20% in real terms since 2011. But even the education provided at the level of high school is severely lacking: as many as 33% of working-age adults in England do not have a Level 3 or above qualification (that is an "A level" or secondary school technical qualification which would allow entry to university), and 17% do not have a Level 2 or above qualification (meaning they have successfully obtained GCSEs, the exam done at the age of 16).
The total number of job vacancies more than doubled between 2017 and 2022 to over a million but since then has come down to 761,000 (April 2025) - and around 36% of them were at that time said to be due to skills shortages. More recent figures are not available.
These have reached ridiculous proportions in the National Health Service and in the Social Care sector. According to the House of Commons Library, there are an estimated 106,432 unfilled NHS vacancies - including over 8,000 medical professionals, over 31,000 nurses (nurses' organisations estimate this number to be 50,000) and nearly 70,000 other staff.
Over 100,000 NHS vacancies have been unfilled since before the pandemic. In fact successive governments have left them unfilled deliberately, because they are not prepared to make the necessary funding available. The Nursing Standard recently reported how a newly qualified nurse "has applied for 35 jobs in the NHS without success and, with bills to pay, has moved back home to Nottingham to take a job in a coffee shop".
And while patients cannot get GP appointments - 5 million waited more than 2 weeks for a GP appointment last year and 1.4 million people waited more than 4 weeks - there are an estimated 3,000 unemployed or under-employed GPs and half of newly-qualified GPs (roughly 1,500) cannot find jobs!
It is no surprise then, that the 7.5m waiting list never gets any shorter.
The rise of precarious jobs: "teamwork" by Tories and Labour
The rapid deterioration of working conditions, and the high rate at which precariousness is increasing, has led commentators and politicians to claim - like a minister of the government did recently - that "employment rights have failed to keep pace". As if the bosses had ever "kept pace" with employment rights!
No, precarious conditions of work are not something new; they have always been an important weapon in the arsenal used by the bosses to attack the working class and thus increase the exploitation rate, in order to contend with falling profits - particularly since the 1970s.
Growing unemployment at the end of the 1970s - it more than tripled in the decade to 1983 hitting 11.3% - allowed the bosses, aided by Thatcher's privatisation drive, to seize the opportunity to cut wages and drive down conditions across the board.
So for instance, in 1980 Thatcher introduced Compulsory Competitive Tendering in public services, allowing small cowboy contractors to bid to take over the existing catering, cleaning, laundry, transport, security, IT, etc., operations in the civil service, local government, the NHS, etc... These cowboys eventually metamorphosed into today's "service" giants - namely, Serco, Capita, G4S, Rentokil, etc... As they did so, by using and abusing cheap labour - the number of temporary jobs and the agencies that provided "temps" grew. And this outsourcing carried on with a vengeance under Blair's "New Labour" government.
Indeed, picking up from where Thatcher/Major left off, Blair raised the threshold for employer National Insurance Contributions, making it profitable for the bosses to hire workers part-time on low pay. This resulted in a surge in this kind of jobs. Meanwhile, Blair expanded the use of subcontractors in public services - building on Thatcher's and Major's policies - so that by the early 2000s, 10% of local government staff were on short- term contracts (double what it was by the end of Major's premiership), nearly 20,000 supply teachers worked through agencies daily (from only a few thousands under Major), and 10% of nurses were already employed through agencies (from less than 3% under Major)!
In fact, Blair's tenure in government oversaw an explosion of agency labour across both public and private sectors. Nestor, the UK's largest health employment agency, supplied 92,000 nurses and subcontracted nearly a fifth of the health and care workforce by 2002. The number of employment agencies soared to 10,000, with Job Centres themselves subcontracted to firms like Manpower and Reed - who already provided agency work to 700,000 workers. Behind all this was Labour's attempt at building a "flexible labour market", which provided the capitalist class with the labour cost flexibility that it required to keep its profits high.
This drive was accompanied by a ruthless war against the unemployed. Blair's "New Deal" of 1998 forced the jobless to accept the first low-paid job offered, or lose their benefits. The long-term sick, disabled, lone parents, and older jobseekers were all targeted - threatened into taking any casual work or dubious training scheme. In this way, New Labour pushed hundreds of thousands off benefits into insecure, poverty-wage jobs.
When the financial crisis of 2007/8 hit, and Brown's Labour government bailed out the banks, the working class was made to pay for it. Since 2007, the number of workers in part-time jobs has increased by 16%, and the number of temporary or casual jobs by 61.5%. This includes zero-hours contracts, which totalled around 200,000 between 2000 and 2007, and skyrocketed afterwards, increasing by 581% since then! The Tories (and initially also the Lib-Dems in coalition with them) took over in 2010, with their own even harsher version of austerity, proceeding eventually with Brexit. This not only deprived the country of skilled workers and professionals from Europe, but it also meant that the few gains in employment protection - as a resuit of being part of the EU (better than nothing!), like the working time regulations - were put into question.
Labour's empty "Rights" Bill
The fast rise of casualisation, particularly the 5-fold increase in zero-hours contracts, forced political parties across the board to bring up this issue during the last general election, in July 2024. In addition, there had been notorious cases during which big companies had used fire-and-rehire tactics, when the bosses terminated existing contracts in order to reimpose worse terms on workers. This was the case of P&O Ferries, which sacked 800 seafarers in 2022 with no notice, replacing them with agency workers on much lower wages - claiming that it was facing bankruptcy.
While still in opposition, Starmer promised to put a stop to some of the most glaring practices of exploitation that the bosses use against workers - and this promise was duly added to Labour's manifesto. Apparently the Labour Party still considered that it had the "right" to working class votes thanks to its lip service to workers demands. Not to mention the fact that the party is in part funded by the trade unions (which provided roughly one fourth of its donations last year).
So as promised - but not quite, in fact - the "Employment Rights Bill", has been introduced to parliament and is currently at the committee stage in the House of Lords. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner claims it will deliver "the biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation ... turning the page on an economy riven with insecurity, ravaged by dire productivity and blighted by low pay". The Trades Union Congress calls it "a step forward for workers". So, is it?
The Bill undertakes to "end exploitative zero-hour contracts". In other words only the worst of these contracts. Banning them completely is out of the window. It says it will "protect the rights of workers on zero- hours contracts", What rights? Well, for instance, the right to be offered a minimum number of hours of work, reflecting a worker's actual work pattern. But there is no obligation on the employer to do this. Bosses will be able to continue issuing such contracts provided that the terms are "mutually agreed" - between very unequal "partners"!
The Bill is also meant to guarantee workers on zero-hours contracts equal terms with permanent workers after working 12 weeks in the same role, with the same company. But the bosses can use the same loopholes they currently use against temporary agency workers to avoid any guarantees, by rotating them to different roles, or offering work to different agency workers, never more than 12 weeks in a row.
The government claims that the Bill will force employers to provide "reasonable notice" of shifts and compensation for shifts that are cancelled or changed at short notice, defining "reasonable notice" or "short notice" as "less than a specified amount of time" Yes, a "specified amount of time" which, of course, will be decided by the employer.
In addition this new law was meant to address the notorious "fire-and-rehire" tactics like those adopted by P&O and others, notably during the Covid pandemic. In fact it does not actually ban this practice. It states that a worker would be "unfairly dismissed if ... the employer sought to vary the employee's contract of employment and the employee did not agree to the variation". And there is a loophole if a company proves that it is in "financial difficulties".
In fact companies were already permitted by law under the 1975 Employment Protection Act, to make workers redundant if they got into financial difficulties. However they had to inform the workers and their union and give notice of their intentions in advance. Not that this prevented the bosses from cooking their books and pretending to be bankrupt. So the new law will, in this respect, change little.
Starmer's austerity
On 18 March, the Department of Work and Pensions launched its follow-up to the "Get Britain Working" White Paper. This is a Green Paper "consultation document", called "Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working" that proposes radical reforms to the welfare system which it claims is "broken". It includes cuts in health and disability benefits, which can only push people further into poverty.
To "encourage" people into work, it imposes new means tests and puts more pressure on workers who had previously been exempt from work due to ill-health or disability to accept whatever low-paid, insecure job might be available.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said that savings of £5bn need to be made out of the welfare budget. Under her proposals, around 800,000 people who currently receive Personal Independence Payments and the enhanced disability allowance added to their Universal Credit benefit will have to be reassessed for eligibility - and will face significant cuts.
So for instance if you have limited capacity to work at present due to disability or a long term condition, you get a top up to the basic universal credit of £393.45 (single persons over 25), of £416.19 per month - so £809.64 total max, per month. Kendall has proposed that claimants will not be eligible to get this incapacity top-up until they are aged 22 or over!
What's more, the top up is to be cut for all claimants from £97 extra per week in 2025-26 to £50 a week by 2026-27, before being frozen until the end of 2029-30.
Then there is the proposal to cut the Personal Independence Payment (Pip) which is paid to more than 3.6 million people who have a long-term physical or mental health condition in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is made up of a daily living component and a mobility component. Claimants may be eligible for one or both. From November 2026, the government is imposing a more stringent test to receive the payments. These payments add either £290.60 per month (standard) or £434.20 per month (enhanced) - on top of a mobility payment of £114.80 per month (standard) or £303 per month (enhanced).
Keeping in mind that these welfare payments often provide the sole income that a disabled person has to live on, someone moderately disabled receives just £1,215.24 per month to live on and if more severely disabled, £1,546.84. This amount would barely cover bills and living costs.
The DWP says that it expects 3.2 million families - a mixture of current and future recipients - to lose out financially, as a result of the total package of welfare cuts, with an average loss of £1,720 per year. So, 3.2 million families are to be added to the number already under the poverty line!
Kendall claims that these cuts in welfare benefits are intended to force disabled - and especially the disabled youth - into work. Never mind that the vast majority of employers don't hire disabled workers - young or otherwise - and that most of the jobs on offer are precarious. But in the face of a shrinking economy, the disabled youth have been chosen as an easy target by Starmer, Reeves and Kendall. They might well have made a big mistake.
The need to build fighting organisations!
One direct effect of the rise of casualisation and the degradation of working conditions has been the fragmentation of the working class. But this does not mean the working class is disarmed. What it does mean is that workers will have to organise differently. They will have to find new ways to rebuild trust and solidarity - after all, the workers' movement itself was built by casualised workers who had no "legal" rights at all. The right to organise was never granted - it was fought for, and won, through workers' struggles. And nothing has changed in that respect: imposing on the bosses has always been a question of balance of forces.
There is no short-cut. Today, many workers no longer have illusions in the Labour Party or the "parliamentary way" to change. Through experience, they have drawn their own conclusions. In the last election, record numbers simply walked away from the ballot box altogether. Bitter experience has also led them to reject the union leaderships - if not unions altogether.
But abstaining from elections or rejecting the unions' sell-outs isn't enough. What is needed today is for workers to build their own organisations, and not just for their daily struggles, but also as part of permanent political structures. These could form the foundation of the workers' party that has always been needed and never built.
The degradation of working conditions isn't just about bad bosses, bad governments, or even bad union leaders. It flows from a system in deep crisis, a system that is rotting on its feet. To get to the root of the problem, workers need a revolutionary political organisation - one that doesn't just fight for better conditions under capitalism, but aims to destroy the system itself and replace it with one based on fraternity, freedom of movement, and collective control over society.
That kind of political organisation won't come from above. It has to be built from below, by workers themselves, as they begin to take their struggles into their own hands. Yes, the old ties of solidarity - built in the mines, the docks, the factories - have been weakened, if not broken, by decades of closures, privatisation, and restructuring. But those bonds can be rebuilt. Armed with such a political organisation that forges links across sectors, everything can change. The fight against the consequences of this crisis cannot be separated from the fight to change the system itself. And only the working class, acting consciously and collectively, can lead that fight.
31 May 2025