Over 1.3 Million Disabled Workers Trapped in Severely Insecure Work in the UK
Key Highlights :
New research by the Work Foundation at Lancaster University reveals that 1.3 million disabled workers in the U.K. are trapped in severely insecure work—and 430,000 say they want to work more hours. Data shows that disabled people are over-represented in lower-paid, more precarious work and are more likely to work part-time than non-disabled workers. This new report is based on the latest wave of analysis from the Work Foundation's UK Insecure Work Index, which gives a clear picture of the stability of the labor market.
The report found that disabled workers are 1.5 times more likely to be in severely insecure work compared to their non-disabled peers and are more likely to be in "involuntary temporary work"—meaning they would prefer to be on permanent contracts. It also revealed that nearly a quarter of working adults are now disabled (23%) and over the last ten years, the employment rate for disabled people has been approximately 30 percentage points lower than non-disabled people.
Ben Harrison, Director of the Work Foundation, said, “The U.K. economy is under pressure. Our labor market continues to hold record numbers of vacancies and the numbers of workers on long-term sick is at record levels—yet structural inequalities remain, stopping many groups of workers from accessing the good quality work they deserve.”
The think tank uses a single measure to reflect three dimensions of insecure work—unpredictable pay, no guarantee of set hours or future work, and no access to employment rights and protections—based on analysis of 20 years' of ONS Labor Force data.
Recent research suggests a disabled household needs an additional £1,122 a month to have the same standard as living as a non-disabled household—so the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately impacting disabled workers. Furthermore, 10% of disabled workers (430,000) say they would like to work more hours, compared to 7% of non-disabled workers.
Fazilet Hadi, Head of Policy at Disability Rights UK, said, “Disabled people are an asset to the workplace. Our lived experience often makes us fiercely driven, agile and adept problem solvers, with great interpersonal skills, and incisive insight into the commercial habits of the U.K.'s disabled population. A fifth of the people in the U.K. are disabled. The purple pound in the U.K. is worth £2.74 billion. As long as employers continue to erroneously see us as a liability to the sick leave bill rather than strong assets in a diverse workforce, they are missing out on improved working culture and practices, diverse market growth and ultimately, profit.”
The Work Foundation calls for an ambitious and transformative approach from Government and employers to tackle the disability insecurity gap and genuinely overcome structural inequalities in the labor market. Its recommendations include the introduction of wide-spread flexibility in roles; an Employment Bill to shift the onus onto organizations to prove a worker is not eligible for employment rights and protections; to protect disabled benefit claimants from conditionality for the first six months and include those with short-term health conditions.
The report’s findings show that disabled workers are facing a number of challenges in the labor market and it is essential that employers and the Government take action to ensure that disabled workers are able to access secure, quality work. This includes providing support to those with long-term health conditions who want to work more hours to do so, as well as introducing policies to protect disabled workers’ employment rights and ensure the right levels of support are in place from day one of a person entering a workplace.
