Lay Off, Short-Time Working and Redundancy

Rules

The employer should explain to the employees the reason for the lay off or short-time working and keep employees informed of the situation during this time. In both cases these must be temporary situations and your employer must notify you to this effect before they start. The best way to do this is by using Part A of form RP9 (pdf). If your employer fails to notify you of the lay off or short-time working, there could be a claim for statutory redundancy payment against your employer.

Your employer can lay you off or put you on short time if it is in your contract of employment or if it is custom and practice in your workplace.Otherwise your employer should not lay you off or put you on short time without your agreement. However if you do not agree you may be made redundant. You can read more about your options if you do not agree to the lay off or short-time working in our document on being asked to reduce your pay or hours of work.

Selection of employees

When selecting employees for lay off or short-time working an employer should apply the same standard of selection criteria as for redundancy. The criteria should be reasonable and applied in a fair manner. For example, the custom and practice in the workplace may be last in, first out or the contract of employment may set out criteria for selection. Under employment equality legislation, the selection must not discriminate against employees on any of the following 9 grounds: gender, civil status, family status, age, disability, religious belief, race, sexual orientation or membership of the Traveller community.

Social welfare payments

If you are laid off or are on short-time working you may be entitled to Jobseeker's Benefit or Jobseeker's Allowance. If you are getting Family Income Supplement this may be affected by the reduction in your working hours.

Claiming redundancy

If a lay-off or a short-time situation exists and has continued for 4 weeks or more, or for 6 weeks in the last 13 weeks, you may give your employer a notice in writing of your intention to claim redundancy under the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967-2014 - see 'How to apply' below. If the period of lay-off or redundancy has ended, you must do this within 4 weeks.

Unless your employer gives you a counter-notice within 7 days of your notice, you may be entitled to a redundancy payment provided that you qualify for redundancy. If your employer gives you a counter-notice within the allotted time, it must be to the effect that within 4 weeks of the date of your claim for redundancy, it will be possible to offer you not less than 13 weeks' work without lay off or short time.

You should note that if you claim redundancy in this way you are considered to have left your job voluntarily and therefore you will lose any right to notice from your employer under the Minimum Notice and Terms of Employment Acts 1973-2005. However if you have been laid off and you are subsequently made redundant by your employer you do not lose your notice entitlements.

Redundancy payment and notice when on short time

If you have been put on short time and then are made redundant your redundancy payment may be based on your pay for a full week. It has been the view of the Employment Appeals Tribunal (now the Workplace Relations Commission) that when a person is put on short time, that is, less than half their normal weekly earnings, the gross wage for the calculation of a redundancy lump sum is based on a full week's pay.

Notice: When your employer gives you notice, your notice entitlement is based on your full-time work. When you were put on short-time work, your contract of employment was temporarily suspended. When your employer decided to make you redundant, he or she had to re-activate your contract in order to dismiss you on grounds of redundancy. If you were made redundant and you were not required to work out your notice you are entitled to payment in lieu of notice which is your normal pay for that notice period. This means that your notice entitlement is based on the hours of work in your contract of employment, not on the short-time hours of work.

Duration of lay off or short time

If you do not wish to claim redundancy but the lay-off or short-time situation continues, the question arises as to whether it is a temporary situation. If it becomes apparent that it is no longer temporary then the situation is now a redundancy rather than a lay-off or short-time working. It is the employer who initially decides whether or not there is a redundancy situation. If there is a dispute about this it should be referred to the Workplace Relations Commission to make a decision.

Seasonal workers

In the case of workers who have been laid off for an average period of more than 12 weeks during the 4 years prior to redundancy, the provisions relating to lay off above will not apply until the end of that average period. If you are a seasonal worker, therefore, there will normally be no question of redundancy until the usual commencement time of your seasonal work. If you are not then re-employed, the question of redundancy arises, but not until then.