Sep 2020
16
Today marks 45 days before the end of the Furlough Scheme
The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme will officially come to an end on 31st October 2020 and employers will need to decide to either:
- Bring their employees back to work on their normal hours
- Reduce their employees’ hours
- Terminate their employment
The government has introduced a new Job Retention Bonus Scheme, which seeks to incentivise employers to hold off on redundancies. This is a one-off payment to employers who have availed of the CJRS for each furloughed employee who remains continuously employed until 31 January 2021.
However, the unfortunate truth is if you cannot afford to pay your employees, you will need to terminate their employment. If a worker loses their job and is entitled to redundancy pay, this should be calculated based on their pre-furlough wages, and firms can't use the money from furlough to subsidise redundancy packages.
If you are making 20 or more employees redundant within any 90-day period at a single establishment, you must consult employees. This involves speaking to them about why there are redundancies being made and if there are any alternatives to redundancy.
The period of time that this consultation takes depends on how many jobs are being made redundant.
- 100 or more redundancies - the consultation must start at least 45 days before any dismissals take effect
- 20 to 99 redundancies - the consultation must start at least 30 days before any dismissals take effect
- When there are fewer than 20 redundancies, there is no set time period.
If you do not consult employees in a redundancy situation, any redundancies you make will almost certainly be unfair and you could be taken to an employment tribunal.
Today marks 45 days before the end of the furlough scheme – the deadline for large employers to commence the consultation process where 100 or more redundancies are being made. A recent study estimated that the UK was likely to see around 450,000 redundancies this autumn alone. It warned this figure could exceed 735,000 if redundancy notifications continued to rise.
Fresh calls have been made for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme to be extended over fears the UK could be hit with an onslaught of redundancy notices, as employers seek to comply with the 45-day notice period.
Register for our upcoming webinar to find out more about the end of the CJRS, the Job Retention Bonus Scheme and Redundancies. Places are limited – click here to book your place now.
