Unlike last years budget where George Osborne confirmed that the one year qualifying period to make a claim for unfair dismissal would be increased to two years there was very little for employment lawyers to get excited about. The announcement of most interest to employment lawyers (well it was not really announced but could be found contained within all the paperwork issued by the treasury to accompany the budget speech) was that the consultation on Employment Tribunal Fees would end on 17 July 2012 before the summer recess. This announcement was in reality not particularly exciting anyway.
One of the main aims of the budget was to encourage growth within the economy. One way to boost the economy is to try and get more people back into work. Unemployment stands at 8.7% of the working population up from 8.4% last year so there was a need for the Chancellor to come up with incentives for employers to take people on. Arguably the cut in corporation tax from 25% to 24% in April with two further cuts to bring it down to 22% by 2014 will mean that Companies will have more to spend on other things including taking on more staff although this is in no way guaranteed.
From an employees point of view the increase in the personal allowance will clearly be of benefit to employee, particularly to those who are lower-paid. It remains to be seen however whether inflation will mean that the gains from the increase will be wiped out.
Ultimately everyone seemed to know what the contents of the budget would be so much of the comment had been made beforehand and from an Employment Law point of view there was very little that could be said anyway!
No comments:
Post a Comment