Sacking The Pregnant

The legislation has made all of this worse, as there is now so much cost in keeping places open for pregnant women, that it is actually cheaper to risk a tribunal. My wife is a lawyer and says that if you follow the rules, you can always sack people reasonably easily.

Twenty years ago, when the software company I partly owned had several hundred employees, we liked to consider that we were reasonably fair employers. We kept jobs open for women who had children and allowed part-time and home working, where it was appropriate. As there was no regulation, we could do what was best for everyone. We’d made investment in staff and wanted to keep most of them.

Now, I would be very wary of directly employing large numbers of people, let alone pregnant women, as the regulations are a barrier to employing people.

I should say that the only woman of child bearing age I employ has had a child in the last few years, so I still keep to my past principles. But I wouldn’t take on anybody, that couldn’t be easily covered, for whatever reason they had to have time off work.