The main reason for UK workers turning to emergency and community food support is the poor quality of available employment, according to Phys.org, citing a study published in the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice.

University of Liverpool researchers have published the first-ever peer-reviewed study of workers using foodbanks in the UK. The research by the University’s Professor Lydia Hayes and Feeding Liverpool’s Naomi Maynard engaged with people using foodbanks and food pantries in Liverpool.

They found that 65% of participants, including 76% of those of working age, identified that the root causes of their food insecurity were jobs offering uncertain hours and insufficient pay; incompatibility of insecure jobs with the demands of parenting; and high levels of mental stress arising from poor quality employment.

It was in these circumstances that the inadequacy of welfare support then assumed enormous significance for workers struggling to manage on low incomes.

Lydia Hayes, professor of labour rights at the University of Liverpool said in Phys.org, “Record numbers of workers are using foodbanks, and this is a symptom of inadequate employment rights (which have facilitated the rise of insecure employment to record levels) and restrictive trade union laws (which damage the ability of working people to collectively improve their term and conditions).”

“In particular, post-pandemic welfare reforms are interacting with inadequate employment rights and effectively force growing number of workers to take any job, in any sector, under any terms and conditions,” Hayes said.

Hayes added, “Workers using food support see the problem to be poor quality jobs and they want any job they take up to be at least good enough to prevent them from becoming food insecure. The research suggests that to end the phenomenon of workers using foodbanks we need legal change.”

The researchers recommend the implementation of better systems for everyday rights enforcement, including stronger trade union representation in low-wage sectors; public legal education to raise awareness of rights at work; access to free legal advice in employment matters; the encouragement of collective bargaining and a welfare system in which no worker is forced to accept unwanted insecurity of terms and conditions.