Angela Rayner has championed Labour's Employment Rights Act - Dan Kitwood/Getty ImagesLabour has admitted its plan to ban zero-hours contracts will cost businesses up to £3bn to implement. Ministers are finalising plans to give workers more job security as part of a manifesto pledge to ban "exploitative" zero-hours contracts. However, business chiefs have warned that Labour's move to replace zero-hour contracts with guaranteed hours risked locking young people out of work and increasing costs. Under the Employment Rights Act, bosses must offer contracts with a guaranteed minimum number of hours to zero-hours and low-hours workers. There are currently 1.24 million people employed on zero-hours contracts, an increase of almost 200,000 since Labour took power in July 2024.