LONDON: Around one million Britons are in jobs offering no guaranteed minimum work or pay, far more than the 250,000 estimated by the country’s statistics agency, an industry survey showed on Monday.

Zero-hours contracts have come in for growing criticism from trade unions and the opposition Labour Party because people who sign up to them are offered very little security while often being expected to work at short notice.

Britain’s Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development, the main professional body for human resources, said that based on a survey of more than 1,000 employers, it estimated that 3-4 percent of British workers were on zero-hours contracts, equivalent to roughly one million people.

Almost unheard of in the rest of Europe and the United States, the rapid growth of this type of work helps explain how Britain’s barely growing economy has been able to provide jobs for a record number of people.

Last week the Office for National Statistics revised up its estimate of the number of zero-hours workers to 250,000 from 200,000, but said there may be more as its surveys failed to ask many shift workers if they were employed on a zero-hours basis.

“Our research suggests they are being used more commonly than the ONS figures would imply. However, the assumption that all zero-hours contracts are ‘bad’ and the suggestion from some quarters that they should be banned should be questioned,” said Peter Cheese, the CIPD’s chief executive.

Based on a sample of 148 zero-hours workers in a forthcoming CIPD survey, the body said just over half reported that the jobs always provided sufficient work for a basic standard of living, while almost a third said this was not always the case.

LAGOS, Nigeria: A British national has been kidnapped near Lagos international airport, in Nigeria’s commercial capital, the British Consulate-General reported Friday.

Diplomats are working with Nigerian authorities on the kidnapping, which took place earlier this week, said consulate spokesman Wale Adebayo.

The person was kidnapped shortly after leaving the international terminal, said a British statement.

Adebayo would not say what day it occurred or give any other information, citing the “sensitive nature” of the issue.

Kidnappings for ransom are relatively common in oil-rich Nigeria — both of foreigners and wealthy Nigerians.

The 3-year-old son of a state legislator and four Chinese nationals in two different states all have been reported kidnapped this month.

Some cases are not reported because of fears for the safety of the hostages.

Most are released unharmed after ransoms have been paid, though people have been injured and killed if they resist.

Risk analysts Drum Cussac have reported “a noticeable upsurge” in the number of kidnappings in the southwest of Nigeria including Lagos. “Foreign nationals were targeted in the affluent Lagos areas of Ikoyi, Victoria Island and Epe-Lekki, sparking speculation that organized criminal gangs have renewed their focus on the city’s upscale districts given their relatively permissive security environments,” the consultancy said.

The latest piracy statistics from the London-based International Maritime Bureau also reported an increase in kidnappings of the crew of hijacked ships off the coast of Nigeria and the rest of the Gulf of Guinea.

LONDON (AP) — The Church of England’s governing body blocked a move Tuesday to permit women to serve as bishops in a vote so close it failed to settle the question of female leadership and likely condemned the institution to years more debate on the issue.

The General Synod’s daylong debate ended with the rejection of a compromise that was intended to unify the faithful despite differing views on whether women should be allowed in the hierarchy. But backers failed to gain the necessary majority by six votes.

“There is no victory in the coming days,” said Rev. Angus MacLeay. “It is a train crash.”

The defeat was a setback for Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who retires at the end of December, and his successor, Bishop Justin Welby. Both had strongly endorsed a proposed compromise that would have respected the decision of those who objected to the ordination of women bishops.

Instead of ending decades of debate on the issue in the church, the narrow defeat opens the church, which has around 80 million members worldwide, to further years of internal discussions. It also forms an uncomfortable backdrop to the start of Welby’s leadership. He is due to be enthroned in March.

Passage of legislation to allow women to serve as bishops must be approved by two-thirds majorities in the synod’s three houses: bishops, priests and laity. Some took heart in the fact that both the bishops and the clergy voted overwhelmingly in favor. But among the laity, the vote fell short, with 132-74.

“This leaves us with a problem,” said Bishop Graham James of Norwich. “Forty-two out of 44 dioceses approved the legislation and more than three-quarters of members of diocesan synods voted in favor.

“There will be many who wonder why the General Synod expressed its mind so differently,” James added.

Rev. Rachel Weir, leader of Women and the Church, said the group was “absolutely devastated.”

“Obviously this will be an enormous blow to clergy women, it’s awful for their morale — but it’s a disaster for the Church of England.”

Despite the vote, several bishops noted that a woman, Queen Elizabeth II, is the church’s supreme governor.

It has been 36 years since the General Synod declared it had no fundamental objection to ordaining women as priests, and 18 years since the first women were ordained. But that change never won universal acceptance in the church, with a determined minority arguing that that the move was contrary to the Bible.

That group, affirming what it sees as the Biblical idea of male “headship,” has demanded special arrangements to shield it from supervision by female bishops.

Synod members were voting on the latest compromise. It called for church leaders to “respect” the position of parishes that oppose female bishops — without saying what “respect” would mean in practice.

“The trouble is our disagreement is absolute: either a woman can be a bishop, or she cannot,” said Rev. Janet Appleby, a parish priest who drafted the compromise.

But she added that “respect … ensures that parishes that are unable in conscience to accept women priests and bishops will be able to receive appropriate ministerial and episcopal oversight.”

But some found fault with the measure itself. Canon Simon Killwick from Manchester argued that it was “possible to be in favor of women bishops in principle, but to believe that this was the wrong legislation for introducing women bishops.”

Church officials say it may take five years to go through the process of taking new legislation to a final vote.

There was much talk from opponents about fresh negotiations, but few ideas about how to resolve the split. Bishops called an emergency meeting for Wednesday morning to assess the result, church officials said.

“We all think something different is right,” said Rev. James Dudley-Smith. “We are divided and yet today we are forcing ourselves to vote.”

Sister churches of the Anglican Communion in Australia, New Zealand and the United States already have women serving as bishops.

Southern Africa joined that group on Sunday with the consecration of Ellinah Wamukoya as the Anglican bishop of Swaziland.