You asked
With reference to the Employment figures reported three months to August 2017:
How many of these jobs have zero-hours contracts?
How many of the reported zero-hours contract jobs have worked no hours (zero hours) during the data period?
Are the jobs in your response to 2 counted as in employment?
How many of the jobs in your response to 1 are paid at minimum National Minimum Wage or below?
We said
Thank you for your freedom of information request regarding the employment figures reported in the three months to August 2017.
The number of people in employment in the UK is measured by the Labour Force Survey (LFS) and consists of people aged 16 and over who did paid work (as an employee or self-employed), those who had a job that they were temporarily away from, those on government supported training and employment programmes, and those doing unpaid family work.
We publish zero-hour estimates twice a year. The latest release covers the period April to June 2017 in which there were 883,000 people in employment on a zero-hour contract (2.8% of people in employment).
In April to June 2017 158,000 people in employment on zero-hour contracts reported that they have worked no hours in the reference week (17.9% of people on zero-hour contracts) but reported they were temporarily away from a job that they will return to.
People on zero-hour contracts who meet the above criteria are included in the employment estimates.
More information on the number of zero-hour contracts can be found in the following link: https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/contractsthatdonotguaranteeaminimumnumberofhours/september2017
Unfortunately we do not currently hold any tables that would show how many of the zero-hour contracts jobs are paid at the National Minimum Wage or below. However, this information can be obtained from the Labour Force Survey datasets.
We do provide a bespoke service for analysis that is not already available. Information can be obtained from the customer services team of ONS Social Surveys Division. Special extracts and tabulations of data are available to order (subject to legal frameworks, disclosure control, resources and agreements of costs, where appropriate). Such enquiries should be made to socialsurveys@ons.gov.uk
As this information is already available to you via this route, we consider that s.21(1) applies to this request and the information does not have to be supplied under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act. S.21(1) is an absolute exemption and no consideration of the public interest test needs to be applied.
Another route would be to access the Labour Force Survey datasets at the UK Data Service if you are able to run your own analysis. You can access anonymised Labour Force Survey (LFS) datasets from the UK Data Service.
Details of how to access the data can be found here - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access.aspx
Data can be downloaded free of charge for non-commercial purposes but if charges are applicable, you will be notified during the ordering process. Advice for commercial users - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/registration.aspx#/tab-commercial-users
Charges - http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/get-data/how-to-access/charges.aspx
List of LFS datasets at the UK Data Service - http://discover.ukdataservice.ac.uk/?q=labour+force+survey
LFS user guides- https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/methodologies/labourforcesurveyuserguidance