Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of workers in the care sector on zero hours contracts in each year since 2010-11; and what proportion of such workers were women.
The Department does not collect this information centrally.
Skills for Care, the social care sector skills council partner for England, has provided the following estimate for adult social care workers:
Year | Estimated number of zero-hours contracts jobs | Estimated percentage of all jobs that are zero-hours contracts jobs |
2012/13 | 310,000 | 20% |
2011/12 | 270,000 | 18% |
2010/11 | 250,000 | 17% |
Source: Skills for Care workforce estimates 2011 to 2013, NMDS-SC October 2014
Gender | Estimated number of zero-hours contracts jobs | Estimated proportion of zero-hours contracts jobs |
Male | 40,000 | 13% |
Female | 270,000 | 87% |
Source: Skills for Care workforce estimates 2011 to 2013, NMDS-SC October 2014
The proportion of workers who are women has not changed substantially from 2010/11 to 2012/13.
This information is based on sample data provided to Skills for Care.