"Sports Direct responsible for fifth of all zero hour contracts in retail sector", 30 Mar 2015

The retailer’s chairman, Keith Hellawell, was grilled by MPs last week...He was...questioned about the company’s use of zero hours contracts. Sports Direct employs  nearly 15,000 on terms that guarantee no set hours each week. Mr Hellawell claimed that Sports Direct uses the contracts no more than any other retailer, but data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) appears to cast doubt on this.When Mr Hellawell was asked why the business uses the contracts so widely, with 75 per cent of its UK workforce on them, he said it was due to the flexibility they offer. He added: “I suspect that, in percentage terms, we are probably not much different from other people in the retail business. It is just that we are so big, so the numbers are quite substantial.”