The latest ONS estimate of the number of people who are employed on zero-hours contracts (ZHCs) in their main employment, from the Labour Force Survey of individuals in households, is 744,000 for April to June 2015, representing 2.4% of those employed. This latest figure is higher than that for April to June 2014, which stood at 624,000 or 2.0% of those employed. On average, someone on a ZHC usually works 25 hours a week. Around 40% of people on a ZHC wanted more hours. The estimate from the third ONS survey of businesses indicates that there are around 1.5 million on ZHCs which is 91,000 higher than for January 2014, an increase of 6%. The difference between the business survey and LFS will partly be accounted for by people who have more than one ZHC with different employers or who have a ZHC to supplement their main employment.

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