Next boss Lord Wolfson slams Labour’s zero-hour contracts crackdown

CEO says Employment Rights Act will make it ‘much harder’ to offer flexible hours to staff

The chief executive of Next has launched a stinging attack on the government’s clampdown on zero-hour contracts, urging Labour to reverse its “employment taxes”.

Lord Simon Wolfson, who leads the FTSE 100 retailer, warned that government plans to compel employers to offer guaranteed hours to those on flexible contracts will make it “much harder” for Next to provide additional hours to its workforce.

The proposed legislation would oblige employers to offer a fixed contract with guaranteed hours to eligible workers, but Wolfson argued these demands are problematic because “the risk is you then have to contract for those hours forever”.

“You can’t afford to […] have the same number of people in your shop in February as you have in and around Christmas,” Lord Wolfson told the BBC, as reported by City AM.

“That’s going to be bad news for our colleagues who want extra hours, particularly students who, in holiday time, need extra hours, and of course bad news for customers because service won’t be as good.”

Several trade bodies have cautioned the government in recent weeks that the new regulations could drive up unemployment and shut young people out of the jobs market.

More than 946,000 young people are currently outside education, employment and training, and an imminent review is expected to conclude this week that social media and the welfare state are responsible for this “economic catastrophe”.

Lord Wolfson, a Conservative peer, warned that the forthcoming restrictions on flexible working mean “the problem is going to be made worse”. He added: “We will offer fewer hours.”

The Next chief also urged the government to reverse its increases to national insurance contributions and the minimum wage, which he argued had pushed up the cost of entry-level employment by 14 per cent.

“What [the] government should be focussing on is not micromanaging youth unemployment but getting the whole economy moving, and that means reforming planning, energy policy, transport policy,” he said.

Government hits out at Wolfson comments

A government spokesperson said: “Lord Wolfson’s comments are neither new nor surprising.

“The Budget allowed us to stabilise the economy and deliver support for families and businesses, and the UK is the fastest growing economy in the G7 in the first quarter of this year.

“The Employment Rights Act gives people the security they need in their working lives. Lord Wolfson, who earned more than £7m last year, will understand just how important our measures to make work pay are for the financial and job security of working people.”

Lord Wolfson also tackled questions surrounding Next’s own employment practices, with certain shareholders pressing the retailer to adopt the “real” living wage for its workforce.

Next employs 49,181 people – according to its latest accounts – a reduction from 50,945 people the previous year. The retail chief dismissed claims that he is putting the company’s shareholders ahead of its workforce.

He said: “When people talk about a company making a billion pounds, they assume that that’s somehow a person with a billion pounds in their pocket and they must be very, very rich.

“But the nature of public companies is that we are owned by hundreds of thousands of savers whose savings are often very modest.”