Half of employees aged 18-24 don’t know their employment rights, study suggests

Almost half of the young people in Britain’s workforce are unaware of their hard-won employment rights and legal protections at work, research by YouGov has found.

Some 48% of respondents aged 18-24 said that they were unaware of the legal requirement for their employers to have personal injury insurance for their employees. As The Times reports, the study also found that some 45% of respondents of all ages were reluctant to assert their employment rights for fear of being sacked.

John Quail, managing director of Claims.co.uk, commented: "Compensation culture often gets a bad name, with some minority cases covered in the press to disenfranchise the population from the process. However, there are occasions where legal redress is the only option, both essential for the victim and beneficial in a much wider sense as it helps to stamp out dangerous practices. If workers are unaware of the insurance their boss is required to have, and are too fearful of losing their job to make a claim, they may well work in dangerous or unhealthy conditions without raising complaint."