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As the govt’s flagship Employment Rights Act (2025) comes into force. File on 4 Investigates discovers hundreds of workers on government contracts are allegedly part of the ‘bogus self employed’. This we are told is the tip of the iceberg as increasingly more employers choose to put workers on self employed contracts rather than employing them as staff via PAYE, with all the rights that offers.

We will examine through academic research the scale of bogus self-employment, and analyse why it is bad news for the economy, with some suggesting changes to NI has meant more businesses, under pressure themselves, are keeping workers off payroll to keep running costs down. We will also look at small businesses where it’s become increasingly difficult to employ staff in the traditional way and find that some workers in hospitality for example like the flexibility that job apps can give them when picking up casual freelance work.

Presenter: Tom Wall
Producer: Rob Byrne
Technical producer: Cameron Ward
Production Co-ordinator: Tim Fernley
Editor: Tara McDermott