11. Redundancy
[ch 11: page 413]This Chapter sets out the individual rights of workers who are made redundant, unions’ statutory rights to collective consultation when large scale job losses are threatened (20 or more redundancies proposed over a 90-day period), when a protective award can be made, and the impact of insolvency on redundancy rights.
Redundancies soared during the coronavirus pandemic, with almost 940,000 redundancies reported in the period March 2020 to February 2021. Even so, many jobs were saved as a result of the temporary lay off scheme — the government Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme negotiated between the government, trade unions and industry bodies at the start of the pandemic. At its peak, in May 2020, 8.86 million jobs were covered by the Scheme, under which 80% of normal monthly wages (capped at £2,500) were covered by government subsidy.