Member

“this concern is heightened in the current labour market context of falling jobs (the number of payrolled employee jobs has fallen by 127,000 over the past year) and slowing hiring (the number of vacancies employers are posting has been falling for two years, and is now below pre-pandemic levels) … The number of young people (aged 16 to 24) not working or studying has risen post-pandemic, and is at its highest level in a decade. And young people’s employment prospects are more sensitive to hiring conditions than older workers because they are more likely to be looking for work … Making dismissals as hard as in the ERB might also be for little obvious gain to workers. Workers today are about half as likely to lose their job as they were 30 years ago, and, unsurprisingly, workers are less worried about losing their jobs … There is also a practical argument against ‘day one’ unfair dismissal protection: the employment tribunal system isn’t in a fit state to deal with more claims. The claims backlog has been growing, and some claims are taking as long as two years to be resolved, long enough that some companies go out of business before workers receive awards”.