Jessica O'ConnorThe UK’s 6.8 million foreign-born workers are more likely to experience precarious work than British-born staff, with one in six working in some form of atypical employment, research by the Resolution Foundation has revealed.
The analysis revealed that among foreign-born workers without UK citizenship, around one in six (460,000 total), were in some form of precarious work including flexible or temporary contracts, gig economy employment, or self-employment.
Around one in 10 (11%) UK-born workers were in precarity.
Their increased precarity is not explained by age, sex or qualification level.
Indeed, the fact that foreign-born workers are usually more highly qualified than those born in the UK, should make them less, not more, likely to be in precarious work.
The likelihood of precarious work dropped for foreign-born workers the longer they stay in the UK, but never fully converged with that of UK-born workers.
Those who arrived less than five years ago were 2.4 times as likely to be in precarious work, dropping to 1.5 times after five years, and only 1.2 times for foreign-born UK citizens.
More than one in 10 recently arrived foreign-born (122,000 total) were on contracts with variable hours set by their employers, compared to 7% of UK-born workers.
Recently arrived foreign-born employees were also twice as likely to be employed on a zero-hours contracts (ZHCs) than a UK-born employee (4% versus 2%).
The analysis revealed how experiences of precarity for some foreign-born workers were shaped by their sector.
Many of the sectors with the most precarious working arrangements – such as hospitality, administration and agriculture – also had the highest proportion of foreign-born workers.
Ethnicity also plays a role. The report found that precarious work was more prevalent for non-white ethnic groups, affecting over a quarter (26%) of Pakistani foreign-born workers compared with only 12% of White foreign-born workers.
Overall, the report showed that among foreign-born workers, recent arrivals; non-UK citizens; and ethnic minorities were most at risk of experiencing precarious work.
Hannah Slaughter, senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said: “With one in six foreign-born workers in the UK labour market experiencing precarious employment, more needs to be done to protect these and UK-born workers from exploitation.
“Failing to protect the existing rights of foreign-born workers risks creating a two-tier workforce, driving down standards across the entire labour market and allowing rogue employers to profit in a ‘race to the bottom’.
“The Government’s Employment Rights Bill will offer vital additional protections to all workers – but without creating a data firewall between labour market and immigration enforcement bodies, there remains a risk that worker exploitation will continue to go unreported.”
