Redundancy

Redundancies can be a fact of life in all businesse but with particular impact in the smaller business, where carrying surplus staff in the long term is a shortcut to disaster. A shift in the economic or business climate, a change in technology, a merger or a move to a new location can all make redundancies inevitable.

All employees with more than two years of continuous service have the statutory right not to be unfairly dismissed. There are five potentially ‘fair’ reasons for dismissal, one of these being redundancy but a dismissal by reason of redundancy will only be considered ‘fair’ if a fair and reasonable procedure is followed, taking into account the size and administrative resources of the employer.