BRITAIN has seen an “explosion” in insecure, low-paid work in the past 14 years, according to a TUC report.

The union federation’s study found that the number of people in insecure work had reached a record high of 4.1 million.

Its analysis of official statistics shows the number of people in “precarious” employment, such as zero-hours contracts, low-paid self-employment and casual or seasonal work, increased by nearly one million between 2011 and 2023.

Over that period, insecure work rose nearly three times faster than secure forms of employment, says the report.

The TUC estimates that one in eight workers in the UK are now employed in precarious employment.

Growth in insecure work since 2011 has been fuelled mainly by lower-paid sectors of the economy, says the report.

The TUC argues that the huge rise in insecure and low-paid work highlights the need to strengthen workers’ rights and make employment pay.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “We need a government that will make work pay, but over the last 14 years we have seen an explosion in insecure, low-paid work.

“The UK’s long experiment with a low-rights, low-wage economy has been terrible for growth, productivity and living standards.

“Real wages are still worth less than in 2008 and across the country people are trapped in jobs that offer little or no security.”