Wednesday 2nd Jun 2021

Part-time workers disproportionately affected by furlough

New figures from the Office for National Statistics show that part-time workers are being disproportionately affected by the pandemic, particularly women and those with caring responsibilities. Rates of part-time employment have fallen significantly, dropping to the lowest levels since 2010.

Part-time workers currently account for just 24% of all workers in the UK. The share of women in part-time work has now fallen to 37%, down 4% in comparison to 2020 figures. And half of the UK’s part-timers have been furloughed or had their hours reduced, compared with just a third of full-time workers on furlough who had their hours reduced.

As the furlough scheme is set to end in September, many part-time workers still on furlough are worried about redundancy. There’s also the issue that only 8% of job vacancies advertised mention part-time work, making job prospects for those looking for part-time work slim. Many people rely on the flexibility of part-time work to fit around caring and family responsibilities, and sometimes the option of full-time work is just not feasible.

So, if you’re looking to recruit it makes sense to consider splitting roles to enable part-time working. Chamber members have a wealth of resources available to them to assist with hiring part-time employees or transitioning their current employees to part-time or flexible work patterns.

Chamber Protect offers specialist HR advice on best practice and legal requirements along with a vast document library covering things like sample contracts for part-time or flexible workers to make sure you are compliant with all employment legislation. If you’re yet to come a member of the Chamber, you can do so here and access this support straight away.