Employment specialists have predicted that a second wave of redundancies caused by the expected second recession will primarily affect older workers and pregnant women.
Recent figures released by the Tribunal Service have revealed that tribunal claims for age discrimination in the last quarter of 2010 were more than twice that of the previous year. In the same time period, claims for unfair dismissal and discrimination by pregnant women rose by 47%.
This is in sharp contrast with the fact that, overall, the number of unfair dismissal claims as a whole fell in 2010. Experts are putting this down to the fact that the bulk of redundancies at the beginning of the first recession were confined to workers in non-protected groups.
They point out that the figures show a worrying trend in employment in the UK, and that whilst the overall numbers of unfair dismissal claims are falling, this can easily be attributed to the fact that large numbers of staff have already been axed by employers.
Moreover, the rise in discrimination claims from older workers and pregnant women suggests that employers are now targeting their more expensive staff, despite the fact that these staff belong to protected groups. It appears that mistakes are being made when accounts departments put pressure on HR to make staff cuts.
Companies who are considering making redundancies amongst workers in protected groups should first take expert legal advice to ensure that they are acting fairly and within the law, in order to prevent such claims being made against them.
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