'Impossible choices' | Nearly 40% of UK staff allocated shifts at short notice

Around two-fifths (37%) of UK workers in full or part-time employment are given less than a week’s notice of their shifts or work patterns.

That’s according to new research conducted by the Living Wage Foundation based on two surveys of over 2,000 UK adults in each case.

The research revealed that among the 59% of whose job involves variable hours of shift work, 62% reported having less than a week’s notice when it came to their work schedules. 12% of this group – which equated to seven per cent of all working adults – claimed that they were given less than 24 hours’ notice.

Short notice periods were also more common in London, as found by the data, where 48% of workers were given less than a week’s advance notice of their schedules.