The effects of the recession on employment tribunal claims have been revealed in the annual report of Acas, the Government’s advisory, conciliation and arbitration service. Published last week, the report showed a rise of 22 per cent in unfair dismissal claims.
The report also showed that Acas received over 78,000 conciliation cases from the Employment Tribunal Service – almost a fifth (18 per cent) more than the year before.
There was also a significant increase (22 per cent) in unfair dismissal conciliation cases received by Acas over the last year, compared to a decrease in the number of these cases over the last two years.
In total, Acas received 55,000 cases which involved a claim for unfair dismissal this year, a rise of almost 12,000. The number of claims that cited unfair dismissal as the main ground of complaint was up from 33,352 last year to 43,028 this year, a jump of 29 per cent.
The report also shows a rise in redundancy pay claims, up to 3,938 from 2,891, an increase of 36 per cent.
Not surprisingly perhaps, calls to the Acas helpline on redundancy have steadily risen over the last year. The helpline - which received around 10-15 thousand calls per week in 08/09 - saw a 100 per cent increase in the proportion of calls requesting advice on redundancy.
To read the report, go to: http://www.acas.org.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=1626