Good for companies, not so good for workers or society. We have to question whether we want a dog-eat-dog world like the USA where citizens are duped into working three jobs to support a near poverty lifestyle, but proud not to have to rely on the government (saw that on Michael Moore). IMHO.

Indeed they may, but as I am hearing impaired and have to wear double hearing aids it is a little difficult for me to work in a noisy environment such as Mickey D's, unfortunately.

I don't think it will be long before fast food chains like MD or BK will be fully automated (no staff). We all know that the "kitchen" is really just a glorified production line, and now that they are introducing self-order kiosks the service staff are becoming less of a necessity too. Although it could be done tomorrow, I give it about ten years before McD's is just a giant eat-in vending machine.

I wonder if these types of contracts will become more utilized in all sectors if allowable.
How do people working on this type of contract get a mortgage, vehicle loan or line of credit if no guaranteed income or hours?
Employers in some areas do not want to hire full time employees due to having to pay benefits if in a unionized workplace.
Are we now facing a situation where some are desperate for jobs that they have no option but to apply for jobs like these.

Yes. Got it in one.

For low paid jobs it's bad news and I wouldn't knowingly or willingly spend money somewhere that employed people on those unequal terms. That said where I work some staff are on contracts with zero minimum hours. However, these are positions that are well paid and for people who are specialists where the workload to use their specialism isn't reliable enough. They quite often have other business interests and I think the agreement isn't on exclusive terms ie they could sign a similar contract with someone else.

Absolutely.

My son has no minimum hours on his contract - the only way he was able to secure a mortgage was by working for 4 weeks taking every shift that he could and showing more than 35 hours a week and then getting a letter from his employer that he was employed on a permanent basis. This was accepted by the mortgagee as 'working full time hours' but it was touch and go for a while as to whether they would accept it.

A local company I know of (large corporation) don't hire any full time office staff - all their workers are on part time contracts (and most work 2 jobs at the same place) which gets around the need to pay benefits.

I'm an administrator with more than 30 years experience, I have friends (cradles) who are administrators with similar Canadian experience and we are all finding it extremely difficult to secure a job or even get to the interview stage. When you have a mortgage to pay you have to accept whatever you can get - so yes, you end up applying for jobs that have 0 hours in the hope that it will lead to something better. It's also better to have a current job on your resume rather than show yourself as being unemployed.

It's not fun out there in unemployment land.

But did you have a contract saying you would be paid for 40 hours? I suspect not though it's somewhat beside the point. The purpose of zero hour contracts in the UK is to deny employees status under employment legislation. There's little such legislation here and so no status to be denied.

With interest rates so low at the moment, it's a great time to lay off workers and install machines.

There's at least one machine in development which will create burgers from scratch to your specifications, for not that much more than McDonalds' charge. So it won't be too long before there'll be no low-paid McDonalds' jobs for people to complain about.

'tis true. And it's going to be a problem for the unskilled segment of the workforce.

I've never had a job that had a contract since most jobs in the min wage to 14/hr range don't do contracts, but even when full-time, I have never had a employer guarantee hours anywhere I have worked.

I've never had an employer cut hours, but they certainly never guaranteed an X amount of hours. Seems silly for an employer to lock themselves into such an agreement.

Wal-Mart which was mentioned earlier, typically wont drop their employees below 16-20 hours a week if part-time as far as I know, I have a few friends at different stores who report the same.

When I had an interview at Air Canada in January to load planes, the pretty much classify all airports jobs now as part-time, and their range was you could get 0 to 40 hours a week, but every week would be different depending on company needs.

I know some of the health authorities in the area hire mostly casual in some job functions and don't guarantee any kind of hours.

People have been saying that for decades.

Even when you have a machine doing something you at least some people to operate and maintain it. And even if they started "rolling it out" tomorrow it would be more decades before it was complete. You'd also have to redesign and heavily modify/rebuild every location. Also, who cleans the place or tidies up after some crowd of yahoos have been through and half wrecked the place? The robot servant? How 1950s.

There is also the question of whether you'd go to a McDonalds that had no people in it. It sounds like an obvious "haha of course, who wouldn't want to avoid some spotty teen with seemingly no verbal skills" but that would be an easy flippant way to think about it.

There is an A/W near me that has self ordering machines, you can place your order, and pay without ever talking to a human.

Nobody ever uses them, every-time I go in, everyone is waiting in line.

Heck Wal-Mart the cheapest company on the planet, even started to remove automated check out in some stores.

Sometimes you need people.

Oddly people have no issue check in for a flight online or at a machine at an airport, but stores seem to struggle to get customers to use automated check outs.

They used to say that about ATM's.

I think it is about 2 extremes.

1. Employers lost the decision making process in selecting/promoting employees as the govt made so much legislation to protect employees and specific groups that it left employers wide open to abuse i.e. parents were given extra rights over childless people and given more flexible hours - and the childless had to pick up the extra work and hours. Certain % of your employees must be disabled and ethnic minority etc etc. No longer can the best be selected or promoted by the employer - legislation and those with a "sense of entitlement" dictate who the employer must have/promote.

2. Employers regained the right to decide who did or did not work for them and the hours they would work by creating 0 hours contracts removing nearly all rights.

I think 0 hours contracts show that the more you regulate and legislate to protect certain groups of people the more you will find you make them unemployable or employers find a way around all legislation - difficult to find a way around just some. It's all about balance, there should be a level of protection for both employer and employee.

The unions really messed it up for everyone. They decided they represented everyone including freelancers/contractors such as myself who earned a premium for this type of work. They campaigned for extra rights for all temporary/freelance/contract workers including equal pay and rights. The freelancers/contractors told them to sod off, we don't want equal pay and rights and we want to keep our premium and right to decide where we put our pension money etc. The Unions got their way as it was a Labour gov at the time and overnight temporary workers to keep their premium rate over permanent workers were then put on 0 hours contracts to compensate. Those employees who got the extra protection from the legislation lost the premium rate. Those sensible freelancers/contractors used a corporate set up (Ltd Co) to avoid the legislation - and had they not done that UK would lose its flexible workforce that provides enormous economic benefits for both individual and country. What did the unions achieve - a pay cut and/or loss of employee rights to people who were not even a member of the union. They still campaign to bring all freelancers/contractors under the same legislation though.