Zero Hours Contracts

As a PA, you may have a contract that says you work a fixed number of hours a week, or you may have a zero-hours contract. If you have a zero-hours contract:

• Your employer does not have to give you any minimum working hours
• You do not have to take any work offered.

Your rights under a zero hours contract

If you’re on a zero-hours contract you can be classed as an employee or a worker. By law, this means you have employment rights including:

• National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage
• Paid holiday
• Pay and work related travel
• Pay for being on call.

Depending on your contract and circumstances, you might be legally classed as an employee and have more employment rights. Find out more about establishing your employment status in the Article ‘Checking your Employment Rights‘.

Working for more than one employer

If you’re on a zero-hours contract, by law, your employer must not:

• Stop you working for another employer by putting an ‘exclusivity clause’ in your contract
• Treat you unfairly if you do work for another employer
• Dismiss you for it (if you’re legally classed as an employee).

This law still applies even if your employer says you’ve broken your contract by working for another employer.

Rest breaks

Under zero-hours contracts, you have the same rights as other employees and workers to:

• Rest breaks at work
• Rest between working days or shifts
• Weekly rest periods.

If your employment contract ends

A zero-hours contract could be an ongoing contract or a series of short contracts each time you do work for your employer.

It’s important to know which type of contract you have because if your contract ends, your employer must pay you:

• Any holiday you’ve built up and not taken
• Outstanding wages and notice pay (if you were employed for more than a month, or if your contract says so).

Continuous employment

When your employment has been continuous, with no break, you build up more employment rights. For example:

• For employees, you have the right to make an unfair dismissal claim after 2 years’ service, but this could reset if there was a break in employment
• For employees, you have the right to a statutory redundancy payment after 2 years’ continuous service
• An employee must be continuously employed for one month to be entitled to statutory minimum notice if your employer wants to end your contract.

It’s important to know if your employment has been continuous or if there has been a break. It might not be clear if there has been a break if you have short contracts each time you do work for your employer, or if you leave a job and return back to it. If you’re unsure, you should check with your employer.

Employers’ responsibilities for zero hours workers

The employer is responsible for:

• Zero-hours workers’ health and safety at work
• Paying their wages through PAYE, including tax and National Insurance deductions.

Next steps

Take a look at the Resources below to guide you in more detail.