Demand for redundancy advice soaring as more firms announce cuts

Demand for advice around redundancy is soaring north of the border, according to new data from Citizens Advice Scotland, with almost one in five employment queries to the network concerning redundancy.

Upper Crust owner SSP is among those to announce cuts.

During the first three weeks of June, advice in relation to redundancy was issued 907 times to people seeking help from the 59 Citizens Advice bureaux across Scotland. In comparison, 543 pieces of redundancy advice were given in the whole month of April and 679 pieces in May.

The charity’s latest weekly report highlighting the impact of Covid-19 on advice, comes as thousands more jobs UK-wide were put at risk as the owner of bakery chains Upper Crust and Caffe Ritazza announced job cut plans following plunging passengers numbers at railway stations and airports due to the coronavirus pandemic. Around 5,000 jobs will be lost at SSP Group, which owns the brands - potentially affecting up to 55 per cent of its workforce,

The group, which has around 570 sites across 130 airport and railway stations in the UK and Ireland and operations in 35 countries worldwide. warned it expects to open only around a fifth of its sites in the UK by the autumn as travel is set to remain at very low levels amid the Covid-19 crisis.

CAS social justice spokeswoman Mhoraig Green said: “This is a stark increase in demand for advice around redundancy, it’s clear that the economic impact of Covid-19 is being felt now. There is a real risk this impact becomes even worse in the months to come without an ambitious policy response.

“The Jobs Retention Scheme has been broadly successful in ensuring people have an income during lockdown but some people have fallen through the cracks and employers are starting to face difficult decisions about what comes next as the economy reopens and support winds down, with news of significant job cuts becoming a familiar feature in recent days.”

She added: “The response from government in the weeks and months ahead will be vital for defining the next decade. We need an approach that protects jobs and creates new ones, as well as strengthening the social security safety net to prevent people being swept into poverty by an economic storm.

“The Citizens Advice network has been helping people for over 80 years and we stand ready to help people again through this crisis.”

In February, the report found that just nine per of all employment advice was in relation to redundancy. By May this had increased to 12 per cent, and so far in June is at 18 per cent.

As a proportion of all employment advice, redundancy advice has increased by 100 per cent since February.In the seven days from 15 June, the page helping people check if their redundancy is fair was viewed 224 times. In contrast, the same page received 46 views on average per week in February.