We round up the latest employment news.
Autumn Budget 2021 – key employment announcements
The Chancellor announced that the National Minimum Wage (NMW) will increase from Friday 1 April 2022.
The National Living Wage (paid to workers aged 23 and over) will increase from £8.91 to £9.50.
Rates for the hourly NMW will increase:
- For 21-22 year olds - from £8.36 to £9.18
- For 18 - 20 year-olds - from £6.56 to £6.83
- For 16-17 year olds - from £4.62 to £4.81
- For apprentices - from £4.30 to £4.81.
The accommodation offset will increase from £8.36 to £8.70
The Chancellor announced that the government intends to increase funding for apprenticeships to £2.7 billion by 2024-25. That includes expanding the Lifetime Skills Guarantee and extending the apprentice hiring incentive of £3000 for apprentices with an employment start date between Friday 1 October 2021 and Monday 31 January 2022. Employers may make such applications from Tuesday 11 January 2022 to Sunday 15 May 2022.
The government has also committed to several programmes to make the recruitment of apprentices more efficient and accessible for employers. This includes:
- Enhancing the current recruitment service by May 2022
- Introducing an investment tool which demonstrates the benefits of apprentices to businesses.
UK Settlement Scheme - 172,000 people have applied since the deadline
Free movement ended on Thursday 31 December 2020 and was followed by a six-month grace period. During this, relevant aspects of free movement law were saved to allow eligible EEA citizens and their family members resident in the UK by Thursday 31 December 2020 to apply to stay here under the EU Settlement Scheme. That period ended on Wednesday 30 June 2021.
However, the EU citizens who didn’t apply for settled or pre-settled status by Wednesday 30 June 2021 can still apply providing they have a reasonable excuse for missing the deadline.
The Home Office has recently published its monthly statistics which show that over 172,000 people have applied since Wednesday 30 June 2021. We don't know how many have been successful.
Just a reminder that if you employed an EU citizen before Wednesday 30 June 2021 and have found out that they don't have settled or pre-settled status, you don't have to immediately dismiss them. Instead (and if you want to) you can advise the employee to make an application under the settlement scheme within 28 days and continue to employ them. There are a number of important steps that you must take which we explain in this article: What should you do if you discover that an existing employee hasn't applied for settled or pre-settled status?
Gender pay gap ‘watchdog’ will pursue employers that miss the October 2021 deadline
Organisations with 250 or more employees had to report their gender pay gap by Tuesday 5 October 2021.
To help organisations cope with the impact of the pandemic, enforcement for 2019/20 was suspended and enforcement for 2020/21 was pushed back from April to October 2021. The Equality and Human Rights Commission, the body responsible for enforcing the requirements, has announced that it’ll begin enforcement action against employers failing to report by the extended deadline.
Women Leaders Review
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has issued a press release, announcing that it’ll support a new five-year review to monitor the representation of women in FTSE 350 board positions.
New tool for assessing ventilation and COVID-19 transmission
The Health and Safety Executive, in collaboration with the British Occupational Hygiene Society, has developed a free tool to help organisations assess general ventilation and COVID-19 transmission.
Unvaccinated people 32 times more likely to die of COVID-19 in England
According to the Office for National Statistics, unvaccinated people in England are 32 times more likely to die of COVID-19 than those who have been fully vaccinated.
Self-isolation rules broken by one-in-five with COVID-19
Data collected between Monday 27 September and Saturday 2 October 2021 reveals that 22% of people in England testing positive for COVID-19 say they've not followed all self-isolation rules. The Office for National Statistics says that people carried out at least one activity during self-isolation, including leaving their home or having visitors, in breach of COVID-19 regulations.
Bereavement Leave and Pay (stillborn and miscarried babies) Bill
A Private Members Bill to extend entitlement to parental bereavement leave and pay to parents of miscarried or stillborn babies during early pregnancy received its first reading in the House of Commons on Tuesday 19 October 2021. The Bill’s second reading is expected on Friday 25 February 2022.
HMRC publishes guidance on how to submit a late claim for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
HMRC has published guidance on how to submit a late claim for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS). The deadline to make a claim for September 2021 was Thursday 14 October 2021.
HMRC has also published further guidance on viewing or deleting previous CJRS claims.
Removal of all countries from the red list
The government has removed all countries from the ‘red list’. This means that travellers don’t have to self-isolate when they return to the UK, unless they have COVID-19.
Read more - November 2021
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