At least 3.7 million people in Britain are in precarious jobs, up from 3.6 million in 2021, out of a total workforce of 34 million, according to an analysis of government figures by the TUC. This compares with 3.2 million at the end of 2016, before the publication of the Taylor review, a landmark government-backed report on UK jobs. Francis O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said Boris Johnson’s government seemed “intent on dragging us backwards on workplace rights”. Johnson’s final acquiescence to a wave of Tory MPs calling for his resignation as prime minister means he is likely to leave office without delivering the jobs bill he first promised when he won a majority in the 2019 general election. The repeated postponement of the bill came as relations between the government and unions have deteriorated rapidly. The government has said it will change the law to allow companies to break strikes by using agency staff, and Johnson’s emphasis on seeking a “high wage” economy has been replaced by direct criticism of workers demanding higher wages. Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, commissioned a report from Matthew Taylor, former head of No 10 policy unit under Tony Blair, to look at how the law could be changed to ensure “all work is fair and decent”. . It followed the rapid rise of new ways of working, such as zero-hours contracts and gig economy jobs, in which people work for a company but are counted as self-employed, therefore losing benefits and protections. While unemployment remains historically low, the TUC said there have been increases in precarious work in the last year for people on zero-hours contracts and for agency, casual and seasonal workers. The number of self-employed people earning an hourly wage of less than the minimum wage fell slightly during the year. Subscribe to our daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter @BusinessDesk Taylor, who was chief executive of the Royal Society of Arts until last year, made a series of recommendations including giving gig economy workers holiday and sick pay and creating a new “dependent contractor” regime to prevent companies to claim workers are self-employed. But O’Grady, who is due to stand down as the TUC leader by the end of the year, said most of the Taylor review’s recommendations had yet to be implemented. “This Conservative government promised to make Britain the best place in the world to work. But ministers have torched that promise – first by failing to deliver a jobs bill and now brazenly attacking workers’ bargaining power and trade union rights,” he said. “People can’t wait for greater rights and safety at work – they need it now, but this government intends to drag us backwards on workplace rights.”
