Redundancy on the increase?

As reported recently in the Manchester Evening News, a number of employment firms have reported an upturn in redundancy instructions from employers following June’s emergency Budget.

Alan Lewis, head of Employment Law at George Davies, confirms the instructions recently received by the firm reflects this trend.

Alan comments, "A large proportion of enquiries we have been getting from employers in the last six months has been about restructuring and redundancy. It ranges across many sectors of industry, but in the main retail and manufacturing. Whereas advice sought used to relate to ways of avoiding redundancy dismissals, such as lay off, short time working or more permanent changes to reduced working hours, the trend now is towards exiting staff for redundancy reasons."

Alan urges firms to consider alternative options before heading straight for the redundancy route. If there are no alternative options available to the employer, then it is essential that employers follow the proper procedure when consulting on redundancy. Alan suggests “There are strict time limits and rules to adhere to when embarking on a redundancy process and, unless you have had extensive experience of this, it is easy to fall foul of the legislation. It is essential that you obtain advice before you start the redundancy process.

For further details please contact Alan Lewis on 0161 234 8812 or email alanlewis@georgedavies.co.uk