Wales is to start measuring the proportion of workers with ‘good jobs’ by taking into account security of employment and wages
While UK employment has reached record levels, independent economists say more people are taking insecure, low-paid jobs. Figures show that the number of UK workers on zero-hour contracts has passed 800,000 for the first time.
The new measure, adopted under Wales’s 2015 Well-being of Future Generations Act, is one of 46 national indicators looking at everything from loneliness to biological diversity.
It will record the percentage of working people who earn more than two-thirds of the UK median wage and are either on permanent contracts or on temporary contracts and not seeking permanent employment.
The move mirrors a proposal made last year by thinktank the New Economics Foundation (NEF) for a UK-wide ‘good jobs’ indicator. NEF called the government’s move “a big step in the right direction”.
Andy Haldane, chief economist at the Bank of England, has also noted the decline in the proportion of the workforce in “secure and well-paid jobs” between 2011 and 2014.
Image: A staff member at Care in Hand – the first company in the Welsh care sector to become an accredited Living Wage employer. Credit: Care in Hand
