Employment lawyer Ami Naru told travel bosses she anticipates a slump in recruitment rates if the new government introduces ‘day one’ protection against unfair dismissal.
During C&M Recruitment’s ‘ABCLive’ event in London yesterday (September 24), Naru, partner and head of employment at Travlaw, revealed she was “personally against” potential proposals to reduce the unfair dismissal qualifying period from the existing two-year mark to the first day of a worker’s job.
“If this is introduced, it’s going to create more work for employers,” said Naru, adding: “I see a rise in the number of tribunal claims.”
Naru said she had “not seen any of the detail” of the Labour government’s planned employment bill, due to be laid before parliament by October 12, adding that it was not guaranteed to become law.
If the unfair dismissal rules do change, she said her understanding was that employers would still be able to dismiss recently-employed workers if there was a “fair and transparent probationary period”.
“I advise 99% of my clients to make the probationary period at least six months,” she added.
Nevertheless, if the ‘day one’ protection against unfair dismissal is introduced, she said she expects “a slowdown of the recruitment market”.
“I think employers are going to have to be quite savvy with how they measure performance in probation periods,” she added.
She forecast that businesses could potentially end up “settling cases left, right and centre”.