The number of people in Scotland working on “exploitative” insecure job contracts has risen by more than 20% in a year, despite a Labour pledge to ban zero-hours jobs.
Latest official survey analysis shows 95,000 people in Scotland were on zero-hours contracts between April and June this year, up from 79,000 in the same period of 2025. That means 16,000 more people are now working without a guaranteed number of hours.
Pressure on Labour over promised reforms
The increase comes after Labour promised to ban “exploitative” zero-hours contracts before winning the UK General Election in July 2024. The latest figures mean the number of Scots on such contracts is almost double the level recorded when the UK Government first launched a review into their use in 2013.
The Scottish Trades Union Congress has now called for action from the Labour government.
STUC general secretary Roz Foyer said: “The rise in workers in Scotland on zero-hours contracts is a damning indictment on our labour market and the employers who have been allowed to use them so routinely and inconsequentially should be brought to heel.”
She said: “These contracts tilt the balance of power in the workplace overwhelmingly in favour of employers, leaving workers in a constant state of insecurity.
“We are therefore calling on the UK Labour Government to deliver the Employment Rights Act in full and to ensure that the promised right to guaranteed hours is meaningful and enforceable.”
What the figures show
The full Office for National Statistics labour force survey seen by the Herald shows there were just 46,000 workers on zero-hours contracts in 2013, when the then Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government launched a review after identifying what it described as “a steady rise” in their use.
By 2015 to 2017, the Scottish total generally stood between 55,000 and 65,000, before rising to around 70,000 to 75,000 in 2018 and 2019. The number fell during the pandemic, when lockdown restrictions closed businesses and furlough protected many jobs, before rising again as parts of the economy reopened.
Zero-hours contracts have been criticised by workers’ rights groups because they offer no guarantee of regular working hours, create insecurity for workers and are used by employers to undercut wages. Critics have also raised concerns about the impact on workplace bullying, arguing that permanent contracts can make it easier for victims to come forward and lodge complaints.
Political row continues
Labour’s pledge was set out by Rachel Reeves, then the party’s shadow chancellor, in her Mais Lecture at the Bayes Business School in March 2024. She said: “We will ban exploitative zero hours contracts, by giving all workers the right to a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a twelve-week reference period.”
She added: “But these changes will not stop employers from offering overtime or meeting short-term demand, such as in the build-up to Christmas or seasonal work in agriculture or hospitality.”
The approach was criticised at the time because it would not necessarily mean an outright end to every zero-hours contract. Under the plans, employers would be required to offer workers a contract based on the hours they regularly worked, while workers could choose to remain on zero-hours arrangements in some circumstances.
Former Scottish Secretary of State Ian Murray, then Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary, said in May 2024: “Labour’s New Deal for Working People will put power and wealth into the hands of workers and our commitment to these transformative plans is ironclad.
“We will ban exploitative zero hour contracts, end fire and rehire, make work pay, expand sick pay and more.
“The Tories have taken a wrecking ball to workers’ rights while the SNP has opposed Labour’s plans – but Labour will deliver the change that Scotland’s workers need.”
A Labour government spokesman said: “We are absolutely committed to ending exploitative zero-hours contracts, where workers bear all the financial risk when hours, shifts and earnings are unpredictable.
These reforms will give workers in every postcode greater income security and predictability of hours. We have had extensive engagement with trade unions and businesses to get the detail right and ensure this works in the real world.”
Scotland and Westminster
The dispute comes as the Scottish Government continues separate efforts to reduce the use of zero-hours contracts in areas under its control. In November 2018, Scottish ministers and unions agreed a public-sector fair work agreement which stated that zero-hours contracts would not be used.
The Scottish Government has also introduced guidance intended to ensure companies bidding for public-sector contracts do not use exploitative zero-hours arrangements.
However, employment law remains reserved to Westminster, meaning the UK Government is responsible for changing the legal rules governing zero-hours contracts.
The SNP has previously called the arrangements an unfair employment practice, arguing that they can be used to deny workers regular or sufficient hours or penalise them for not being available to work.
The issue has been under political scrutiny for more than a decade. In 2013, then business secretary Vince Cable launched a government review after what he described as a “steady rise” in zero-hours contracts and referred to “anecdotal evidence of abuse by certain employers – including in the public sector – of some vulnerable workers at the margins of the labour market”.
The controversy intensified in 2014 when it emerged that Sports Direct had around 20,000 part-time workers on zero-hours contracts.