Getting Britain Working (except for students, as usual)

On the media round, Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall is doing the old carrots for some eyes, sticks for others trick.

For some outlets, transforming jobcentres into work and careers services rather than places where people manage their benefits is being emphasised.

For other audiences, the threat of losing access to benefits if young people don’t take up the opportunities on offer is the line to take.

But yesterday we were reminded that the government might be about to make employment for students much, much more difficult to obtain.

The Regulatory Policy Committee – the independent regulatory scrutiny body for the UK government – assesses the quality of evidence and analysis used to inform government regulatory proposals.

It has now published its views on the impact assessment and associated justification documents for the Employment Rights Bill – and it’s not pretty:

The impact assessment would benefit from addressing concerns that the proposals could make it more difficult for those unemployed or economically inactive to access jobs, either through overall negative impacts on employment and/or a strengthening of ‘insider’ power” – meaning those already in a company have a better chance of jobs within that company than new recruits.

That is what it is – but the specific concern for our purposes is the potential impact on the sort of Zero Hours Contracts opportunities that students rely on in an otherwise inadequate maintenance system.

As a reminder, much of the flexibility on offer in ZHCs will be removed – including, crucially, the right to guaranteed hours based on a reference period – likely 12 weeks.

As it stands, there’s nothing in the Bill that accounts for term-time only employment and/or employers, as well as those who scale up and down based around academic terms.

On notice of shifts, cancellation of shifts and so on, the RPC says that the Impact Assessment would benefit significantly from addressing the risk that employers (often in fluctuating demand sectors such as hospitality and retail) may respond by scheduling fewer shifts to avoid penalties for cancellations, and the consequential lost output to the economy.

And more importantly on guaranteed hours, the RPC says that the IA should further address the risk that ZHC jobs may not exist as guaranteed hours versions – and that people on ZHCs will then move to unemployment or economic inactivity:

The Department should aim to collect stakeholder evidence, particularly in low-wage sectors and sectors which require flexibility due to seasonal demand etc.

As I’ve noted on here before, there’s a reason why a raft of European countries with tougher labour laws than the UK have dedicated arrangements and contracts for student workers and student jobs – and that’s because their governments have recognised that students need the money and value the flexibility.

In Belgium, for example, the National Social Security Office publishes figures and analysis on student work – partly to inform the debate over hours and educational impacts.

Its latest figures show that about 77 percent of all students have a job – and they’re allowed to work 600 hours (it used to be 475) before they pay any tax, with contracts more flexible than elsewhere in the labour market.

Depending on the number of hours and the nature of the work, there’s upsides and downsides:

Stijn Baert, professor of labor economics at the University of Gent, says:

Student work shows a strong work attitude, maturity, sense of responsibility, respect for authority, motivation and ambition. That can distinguish them from others in the eyes of employers.

But on the other hand:

If you focus more on other things because of your student job, there is a great risk that your work will distract you from your studies. Intensive student work can not only increase the risk of study delay, but low scores can also cause more trouble when looking for a first job. Working more can - indirectly - be negative for your career.

This is just the sort of proper debate we need to have over student work in the UK - as lots of other European countries develop straightforward exemptions for student focussed businesses and FT student contracts, with some with more ambitious strategies, like dedicated national student employment strategies.

As per usual, as it stands, neither are currently on the table here, presumably because students are DfE not the DWP’s problem. Does anyone in central government actually talk to each other? And what kind of "youth guarantee" pretty much guarantees that it will become harder to earn while you learn?