Employers generally look to reduce staff costs in a downturn,
and that often means redundancies. But making redundancies is
legally more complex than ever. Also, there will be contractor
insolvencies, and replacing a bust contractor will often bring TUPE
into play. Here are some points to bear in mind.
Redundancies
1. Lay-Off
Putting employees on lay-off or short-time working is not an
automatic right which employers have. It depends on the terms of
the contract with them. Employees who are laid off or put on
short-time working anyway have the option to treat themselves as
redundant provided certain conditions are met.
2. Age discrimination
Only employees with two or more years service are entitled to
statutory redundancy pay. The statutory formula is still based on
age and length of service - it is exempted from age discrimination.
But employers' own enhanced redundancy pay schemes are only
exempt if they work by applying the same multiplier to all
