Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

gambiting

That's literally all you get in the UK:

https://www.gov.uk/redundancy-your-rights/redundancy-pay

To quote:

"half a week’s pay for each full year you were under 22

one week’s pay for each full year you were 22 or older, but under 41

one and half week’s pay for each full year you were 41 or older

Length of service is capped at 20 years."

And also it's pretty shit because it's capped, so for most software devs it won't be anywhere near what their actual salary was:

"If you were made redundant on or after 6 April 2023, your weekly pay is capped at £643 and the maximum statutory redundancy pay you can get is £19,290. "

View on HN

This is the money the government will pay you rather than severance from an employer.

Redundancy also comes with a required notice period that the employer must pay you through as well. And there’s a bunch of other rules around how people can be selected for redundancy.

I got laid off when Realtime Worlds went into administration and only got the statutory pay until years later the company was wound up and I got a follow on measly cheque from them for part the money they still owed me for the notice period.

>>This is the money the government will pay you rather than severance from an employer.

Nope, that money is entirely paid by the employer.

https://www.springhouselaw.com/knowledge-hub/redundancy/who-...

"Your redundancy pay is called a statutory redundancy payment. It is calculated based on your age, weekly pay and number of years you’ve worked for your employer. You are also entitled to a paid minimum statutory Notice Period. It’s your employer’s duty to pay these, but your payments are capped"

If the employer can't pay (as in my case) this is also the money the government will pay in their lieu. Which is why it's so shit/capped. Normal payments from employers are generally more in my experience.

Likewise the notice period is paid at full rate.

The UK has an awful standard living for how wealthy it is.

For example, if you happen to be classed as a "worker", rather than an employee, you do not have a legal right to leave work or take time off to care for a sick family member or pick a child up from school.

Yep. And there are many many many other examples like this - for instance UK employee protections are quite good.....unless it's your first 2 years of employment. In which case you get almost nothing - within the first 2 years you can be let go without any reason, and it's not redundancy either so it doesn't trigger all kinds of protections - it's just "it's not working out, bye" - same as US, or worse actually in some ways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com