Employment and working conditions
About 3 mins
The assessments of the policy area on this page were based on a snapshot of progress on 20 July 2026 and do not reflect more recent announcements.
Lead departments
- Department for Work and Pensions
- Department for Business and Trade
- Department of Health and Social Care
Why it matters to health
Work is an important building block of health. Being in work, and the quality of that work, affects people’s physical and mental health, while poor health can limit people’s ability to find and remain in work.
Employment rights affect pay, working hours, job security, flexibility and working conditions, which in turn affect health.
Labour’s commitments
Labour took office pledging to increase the employment rate to 80% by getting 2 million more people into work. Its manifesto committed to a major package of employment reforms:
- strengthening employment rights, including introducing a new right to a contract that reflects usual hours worked, ending fire-and-rehire practices, improving sick pay and expanding flexible working
- strengthening labour market enforcement
- equalising ‘discriminatory’ lower minimum wage rates for young adults.
Status of this policy area
After its election, the Labour government moved quickly to strengthen employment rights and support for people out of work due to ill health. It introduced the Employment Rights Bill within its first 100 days and published the Get Britain Working white paper shortly afterwards. This built on improvements to the minimum wage and flexible working rights introduced over the previous decade.
- Employment rights: The Employment Rights Act 2026 has introduced significant reforms, including:
- extending sick pay eligibility to 1.3 million additional workers
- the removal of the 3-day wait for statutory sick pay
- stronger rights to flexible working
contracts that better reflect usual working hours.
The reforms are expected to have positive health impacts through improved financial security and job quality. However, basic sick pay rates remain low compared with those in similar countries, leaving many workers financially exposed during illness.
- Enforcement and worker protections: The Employment Rights Act has also established the Fair Work Agency and strengthened protections against unfair dismissal, fire and rehire, and redundancy.
- Unemployment: Unemployment increased to 1.78 million in May to July 2026, up from 1.4 million when Labour took office.
- Health and work retention: The 2025 Keep Britain Working review called for stronger support to help people with health conditions remain in work. Implementation is under way through a Vanguard phase, focused on willing employers’ action, including data sharing and improved worker retention support.
- Minimum wage: The government has instructed the Low Pay Commission to work towards extending the national living wage to people aged 18–20 years (it currently applies to people older than 20 years) but with flexibility on the timing, giving priority to the employment prospects of younger workers.