Redundancy: your rights

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Statutory redundancy pay

You’ll normally be entitled to statutory redundancy pay if you’re an employee and you’ve been working for your current employer for 2 years or more.

You’ll get:

  • 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.

Your weekly pay is the average you earned per week over the 12 weeks before the day you got your redundancy notice.

If you were paid less than usual because you were ‘on furlough’ because of coronavirus, your statutory redundancy pay is based on what you would have earned normally.

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. If you were made redundant before 6 April 2023, these amounts will be lower.

Calculate your redundancy pay.

Exceptions

You’re not entitled to statutory redundancy pay if:

  • your employer offers to keep you on
  • your employer offers you suitable alternative work which you refuse without good reason

Being dismissed for misconduct does not count as redundancy, so you would not get statutory redundancy pay if this happened.

You’re not entitled to statutory redundancy pay if you fall into one or more of the following categories:

  • former registered dock workers (covered by other arrangements) and share fishermen
  • crown servants, members of the armed forces or police services
  • apprentices who are not employees at the end of their training
  • a domestic servant who is a member of the employer’s immediate family

Short-term and temporary lay-offs

You can claim statutory redundancy pay if you’re eligible and you’ve been temporarily laid off (without pay or less than half a week’s pay) for either:

  • more than 4 weeks in a row
  • more than 6 non-consecutive weeks in a 13 week period

Write to your employer telling them you intend to claim statutory redundancy pay. This must be done within 4 weeks of your last non-working day in the 4 or 6 week period.

If your employer does not reject your claim within 7 days of receiving it, write to your employer again giving them your notice.

Your claim could be rejected if your normal work is likely to start within 4 weeks and continue for at least 13 weeks.

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