to think that maternity leave is now so good, that job prospects for young women may be limited?

[stubbornhubby]

Don't get me wrong I am really in favour women being able to have good maternity deals, enabling a career and children... BUT has the pendulum so swung so far that smaller, ordinary firms find it difficult to afford it, and are they quietly trying to avoid hiring young women...

I worry that my DDs are actually going to find their career prospects harmed - - because increasingly only v large firms and govt jobs are going to be able to afford to employ them.

(retires now to get flamed as every man ever does who mentions maternity).

if we all fight for more flexible working regulations for fathers too then this won't be an issue.

Employers can claim back statutory maternity pay from the government. The only direct cost to them is the cost of advertising for the replacement. If you can't afford to abide the laws you shouldn't be in business.

The statutory maternity leave deal really isn't great at all. The paternity deal is absolutely dismal.

Employers can claim all, or most of, the statutory maternity pay back from HMRC anyway.

Unfortunately you are not wrong. A friend of ours runs a small business (about 5 staff I think) & openly says that he won't employ women of childbearing age because he can't afford to...

Definately yes.

Legislation outlaws this kind of discrimination, while heaping more and more cost and risk onto employers. Of course they are going to measure that risk and do what they can to reduce it. They will obey the letter of the law, but not the spirit of it.

If they can get away with hiring less women, then that is what will happen.

Agree with Fluffles. Give the Father similar maternity leave allowance and the problem goes away.

BetsyBoop. Your friend can afford to, however he is choosing not because he doesn't value women in the workplace. Did you give him a piece of your mind?

Dh's ex boss always said the same. He was crap at recruitment and ended up having to dismiss lots of male employees and yet he he never moaned about the cost of replacing them.

betsy boop can he not get into some trouble saying that openly as its quite discriminatory?!

It's naive to assume that employers weren't avoiding employing young women before the changes to mat leave and benefits.

14 years ago I was temporarily working somewhere (before returning to uni for a masters, so with no intention of staying on permanently) and the head of dept came in from the interviews for the permanent replacement fuming and cross about the rest of the panel being so biased against women in their 20s because of the "risk" of them having babies . A man was appointed.

It's always happened, imo.

SMP is reclaimable at 104.5% (off the top of my head). Plus maternity leave cover is often filled by those with less experience who are willing to take any length contract to get a foot in the door and are therefore cheaper!

I don't buy businesses not being able to afford it.

TBH I think more women are wising up to this, choosing to have babies before establishing a career if they're in a position and inclined to do so and then zooming through without worrying about career breaks/going back to work/negotiating flexible working or part-time hours after returning. It's makes sense to me at least (but then I would say that cos it's what I'm doing!)

Yup, i've already been passed over for promotion opportunties and sidelined - in a large public sector organisation - because i got married and apparently that meant my 'priorities changed' (ie, they were expecting me to have babies soon). And no, I have no proof that this was said in a one on one meeting.

On small companies, they really should be more flexible when they're thinking of how to employ people. If you're a very small outfit and you don't need a full-time bookkeeper/administrator, how about hiring a woman with young children for between 10am-2.30pm every day? You pay her pro-rata, she's there every day and you'll often get really good, highly experienced people who just aren't being offered the flexibility they need. That's what I did when I was managing a small company - it worked really well. Women with young children are a fantastic resource if you're willing to be flexible and accept that you don't really need, or can't afford, to employ someone full time.

Equally, job sharing - get two highly qualified, experienced employees for the price of one! Employers just need to be more creative (and better businesspeople a lot of the time).

When I was working on projects to assist manufacturing companies, the ones that were going to the wall were the ones who'd always had success doing things a certain way and they weren't willing to change.

The companies that were defying the move to Chinese imports were those willing to shake up their working and management practices and review everything about how they operate.

Change or die, small businesses. Us mothers are going to succeed whatever you throw in front of us, so work with is or get out of our way...

what fluffles said. the extension of ml rights, with no remotely comparative extension of similar rights for fathers was a hugely backwards step for equality. the system now fully endorses the idea that babies and children are women's work - and that women of a certain age are more of a "risk" to potential employers than men. I have heard it said that even members of the govt who introduced the extensions secretly admit it was a right old feck up.

If you look at it from purely a financial point of view I can see where my friend is coming from. He's not anti women, he does employ them (just not those under 40 ).

Pregnant women often take a lot of sick leave (I know that I ended up taking 4 times the amount of sick leave in the few months of two pregnancies that I took in the other 15 years I'd worked there ). You have to cover their job when they go to numerous medical appointments. You often have to pay for more expensive temps when they are on maternity leave. You have to pay them annual leave for the period when they have been off. etc, etc. The cold facts are it does cost an employer when women get pregnant. When you are a small business struggling on tight margins this can be the final straw between staying in business & going under.

It doesn't make it right of course, and as a woman I hate it, but as NorkilyChallenged said this is not a new phenomenon.

Of course if he said this to a job applicant he'd be in big trouble, but like most employers he's not that stupid

YANBU.

I know of employers in small firms who will actively avoid hiring youngish women for this very reason. I get the impression that the main issue for them is not the money, it's more the fact that they have to keep the woman's job open for up to a year (so have to hire temps to cover in the meantime) without even knowing whether the woman will come back or not in the end. It makes it incredibly hard for them to plan. I am not quite sure what the solution is - perhaps women should have to make a firm decision about whether and when they are returning to work within, say, 4 months of birth?

As others have said though the main issue is the inequality between maternity rights and paternity rights. If men took extended paternity leave as a matter of course (or were just as likely to take it as women) then employers would not be influenced by that in their employment/promotion decisions.

"SMP is reclaimable at 104.5%"

Only for small businesses. However, we are a small business and can only claim 92% back. They work out whether you are a small business based on historical data: we weren't a small business a few years ago (pre recession) but we are now.

Also, it's not just the cost of SMP. It's the cost of re-training someone else, and the disruption. It's trying to find someone suitable who will accept a short, fixed-term contract.

I forgot to say I totally agree that making parental leave available for either parent (after possibly the first 3-4 months to promote bf'ing and allow physical recovery for the mother? not sure how that might work) would shift the attention from women having babies to parents. If any employee could end up taking leave then there are very few "safe" options and things would definitely be fairer.

thedollshouse that's a bit of an assumption you are making?

By saying he can't afford to, maybe we are not just talking money here.

For example - one woman goes off on mat leave, another woman comes in to take her place, but has to be trained - that's time spent by someone else in the business. The mat cover person is entitled to holidays, takes them, then woman A comes back, has accrued lots of holidays, takes them. That's a lot of cover to be provided by someone else in the office, or presumably the work won't get done.

I assume in a very small business there just isn't the flexibility built into the business to make this kind of thing easy i.e. not enough pairs of hands etc.

6 weeks on 90% and then SMP isn't that great a deal IMO.

we should be brought into line with EU rules which give 20 weeks, though of course the government won't do this now.

I am the one doing the training and handover for the person taking on my job and that person is coming from within my department with their job unlikely to be back-filled.

I've also only taken one day sick throughout the whole of this pregnancy so far.

I think increasingly young people are not going to be entitled to any of these benefits as working in the private sector becomes driven by short term and casual contracts. I certainly never had a permanent contract in the latter part of my so-called career.

If you are in the puiblic sector, you are very, very lucky to have maternity leave, flexible working etc. But it may become a thing of the past for all but a lucky few.

this is nonsense

the best thing for a company is for them to keep their core staff
they then get the loyalty, experience and continuity that they require to maximise output, creativity, service levels etc
the easiest way for them to do that is for them to treat their emloyees fairly and to try to have a continuing contract of employment...ie that it is a two way situation. that after employment they continue to give to their staff and not just receive.

our society is disgustingly shortsighted everything has to be simple and immediate.. everything and everyone is disposable
because of this we have to legislate to protect those who are vulnerable or in a situation outside the norm

almost all of maternity pay is reclaimed from the govt
pregnancy is not illness and often needs no time off for illness. but if there is illness involved then an employer should support as they would otherwise do so.
a temp or contractor can often inject new ideas or personality into a team
or they can use this time to train another more junior member of staff in a supportive, safe to fail, environment.

instead of us looking at pregnancy in the workplace as a burden we need to accept it
women work
use it as a positive and it can reap rewards

Well said Ronaldinhio. I have no time for anyone who can't see beyond the here and now.

I'm prepared to be flamed - my Company pay 52 weeks basic pay. This helps attract female employees into an industry they might not otherwise choose and our return to work after maternity and female retention are high.

fluffles - yes if maternity and paternity rights were equal then there would be no didadvantage to firms employing young women.

However.....

What women who have young children do bring to an employer is that they are far less likely to leave a firm to go somewhere else.

The cost of hiring a new staff member when someone resigns to go to another employer is high and I suspect that if careful analysis were done then men moving from job to job more often than women actually impose costs on firms that are equal to women of child bearing age.

If I might also say, having worked in the City, the stories I have heard of men threatening to leave a firm unless they get a huge bonus guaranteed is legion.

Personally, I always take the view that firms could save money and have far more stable workforces, less ridiculus risk and more profits if they just let men go who are constanty threatening and demanding. Employ the best women instead and pay them equally to the men that stay. It really would not take long to gain a 50:50 sex balance, a happier workforce and a more competitive and profitable firm that way.

But its not just about the financial cost, there's the disruption caused by hiring cover and the consequential training, there's the issue of whether they'll come back (if they decide to come back at all) and if want to come back part time (and the onus is on the business to make the case not to grant this). And of course, a new mothers priority isn't going to be her work (naturally of course - but this won't mean much to a business).

And then there's the pre and post maternity disruption - possible additional leave, dependants leave, etc etc. As others have said I can imagine that it makes long term planning a nightmare.

If I were a small business owner and had two broadly comparable candidates for a job in front of me - one a man and other a woman under 40 - why on earth would I give the job to the woman?

I believe the solution is to focus the system on parental leave for both parents, instead of the focus being on the mother. Spread "risk" of employing a parent across both sexes if you will...