Will Zero Hours Contracts Be Phased Out In 2025?

There are moves afoot to phase out zero hours contracts, which have come in for some heavy criticism in many quarters, by late next year. Northern Ireland economy minister Conor Murphy has set out a consultation at Stormont and the aim, among other employment changes, is to ban zero hour contracts and replace them with a type of banded hours system, similar to the one which is running in the Republic of Ireland.

Banded hours mean that employees have a contractual entitlement to work within a set range of hours for the next 12 months, calculated by averaging out the hours worked during the previous 12 months. The different bands, of which there should be 8, cover different numbers of hours per week, for example 6 to 11 hours and 11 to 16 hours per week etc.

The Right To A Weeks Unpaid Carers Leave In Any 12 Month Period

Below are some more details of the new employment law proposals, as copied from an article by John Campbell on the BBC News website. It says:

‘Mr Murphy’s proposals also include the right to a week’s unpaid carers leave in any 12-month period, which would bring Northern Ireland into line with the rest of the UK.

‘Mr Murphy said it was his ambition that there should be paid carers leave but that would cost the Stormont budget up to £60m unless a similar scheme was introduced in Great Britain.

‘A further proposal is that people should have the right to request flexible working as soon as they start a job rather than having to wait six months.

‘Mr Murphy said this was a move which could help to tackle economic inactivity.

‘He is also suggesting that statutory paternity leave could be taken in two, one-week blocks rather than having to be taken in a single two-week block as at present.

‘The consultation will run until the end of September with the responses informing the draft legislation.’

As you are probably aware, zero hours contracts can be very problematic for some workers. They have no fixed hours each week, so they have no idea how much they are going to be earning from one week to the next. It makes it very difficult for them to budget or plan ahead. They are linked to low pay, limited hours and very few benefits attached to them. The Labour Party have also stated that they will end zero hours contracts if they get into power, which is most definitely looking a dead cert.