News | Parents to share parental leave
The Government has announced a consultation on the rights for new parents, allowing mothers and fathers more flexibility to share time off after a baby's birth. The proposals include allowing parents to split their parental leave in whatever way suits them best, including taking time off in chunks rather than in one go, and allowing parents to take time off at the same time.
As an employment lawyer advising employers at a time when many businesses are struggling, Jay Bhayani says that she believes it is a time for some stability and not further changes and that the proposals will prove unworkable, resulting in employers being reluctant to take on employees who are likely to have children.
She sees a direct comparison to age discrimination when the result of the imposed retirement age of 65 and lawful retirement procedure (to be abolished from April 11) was that some employers retired everyone at 65 for fear of not being able to retire them later if they allowed them to extend their working time.
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