How women and younger UK workers are being hit by ‘underemployment’

‘Shifts are allocated at often very short notice, so I can’t plan my daily activities properly,’ one woman said. Photograph: monkeybusinessimages/Getty

Forty-four-year-old Catherine, a retail assistant from Stoke-on-Trent, works for a big UK high street brand and has been trying, in vain, to land a full-time contract at her company and elsewhere.

“Full-time work would be absolutely brilliant,” she says. “I could pay my bills without having to rely on universal credit. But I’m on a 14-hours contract, and most of my colleagues are on between eight and 15 hours. Many have two jobs, and quite a lot of my team get no pension contributions, as they don’t make enough.