to be wary of dh taking voluntary redundancy

[2boysandcounting1]

My husband has been told that his work are offering voluntary severence with a package of about £8500. He is keen to take it and wants to hand the form in today i said we should have a look over the weekend on what other jobs are about and talk about it and take form in on Monday. He has until next Friday to hand in application. He got all irate and ended up hanging up on me.

he does have another job that he does on a casual basis but sometimes the hours are good and sometimes there are not many hours. My concern is we have a baby due in November and also have 2 other young children onto of mortgage and bills etc. Im also a SAHM at the moment so we rely on DH wages.

Obviously it would be great to have the money but worried about if he cant find other work as the casual job can be hit and miss. What would you do in this situation?

how many months salary does 8500 represent?

If he is the main breadwinner he needs to put a bit more thought into it and i don't think you are unreasonable to discuss it oer the weekend

Having been made redundant a few times, the last time with almost a year's salary as a pay off, I would say he is better off in work (without redundancy pay) than out of it with the 8 grand.

Its a difficult one because if he doesnt take VR he may get made redundant anyway and only get statutory pay. But I am always wary of anyone leaving a job without another to go to by choice, you have children to feed and bills to pay!

At the very least you need to check out exactly what he would be paid if he was made redundant and compare it the VR payout. Is the 8.5 on top of the legally required pay out or instead of? You may find that it isnt that much more than what he would get if they get rid of him. And if thats the case then I would be inclined to not go for it and hope that he survived any future cull.

If you can put down his age, how long he has worked there and his salary then we can work out what his statutory pay off would be.

Its 8 months pay off. He is saying im not supporting him but in trying to see both sides. I know he doesn't like his job but could end up with nothing if he took it.

He cant do this on a whim, it needs talking about and all the angles considering.

If he doesnt like his job then I can see why he fell on this as an escape route but presumably he has been looking for something else and hasnt found anything yet, so it would be madness to give up his job at the moment.

He is 43 and been there since November 2004. I think the £8500 is the actual payout and he wont get anything else on top. I dont fully know his salary but would say its just under 13,000 per year. He is a teaching assistant so term time only which is why he had the casual job for weekend work and school holidays.

Would he be able to claim Job Seekers' Allowance if he's made himself voluntarily redundant? You might need to check that out too.

You can claim if you have no choice in the matter.

He should also be paid in lieu of notice, and for any holiday days he hasn't taken (though that might not apply if in teaching).

Look into how much JSA he'd get - with child benefit and tax credits etc etc, you might not be that much worse off if he only earns 13k. Though he might not get JSA at all, or it may be reduced if he has a second job.

I don't know about job seekers allowance he would have to look into it as he has his other job so would still be classed as working but the other job income varies from month to month depending what hours he has worked or are available.

So his statutory redunancy would be around £2,500 (ish, depends on his exact weekly earnings before tax, the exact date he finishes etc), so yes that is a big difference.

But, but..... that is assuming he will get something else. Has he been looking for a different job in the last couple of years? I cant help thinking that if he hasnt managed to get anything so far, then he is taking a huge risk that he will in the next 8 months.

Oh and any redundancy payments (volutary or otherwise) are taken into account when calculating tax credits and other means tested benefits so you need to bear that in mind too.

I wouldn't take it unless I had to. Jobs are pretty scarce at the moment - rather, lots of people go for them and it's hugely competitive right now.

My DH got made redundant last year and it took him 6 months to find another one. The redundancy money was swallowed up in 3 months!

Has he just been offered it today and wants to accept today?

If so I don't see what the rush is - you should spend time together over the weekend working out what's best for your family.

He should also be paid in lieu of notice

This is not the case with VR. Many do but they don't have to.

It depends on how likely it is that he will be made redundant anyway. You tend to get a much better package with VR than you do with compulsory redundancy. Mine was about double.

He has been looking but i wouldn't say religiously. I said if he went for it then he would have to be prepared to do anything in the short term until he found the job he really wants. I don't mean that in an awful way, i just feel really uncomfortable with it all. His job are messing him about as they went through a merger last year and where my husband works they are on about 5,000 per year less than the staff from the other campus for doing the same job. My husband got the union involved but they said they wont be sorting contracts out at least until after ofsted in October if at all.

There is alot of uncertainty there as i think they are all worried that they are going to be git rid of anyway. Just wish the timing was better as his casual job is creating a permanent job but only maternity cover and there is still no guarantee of getting the job.

May be different with VR. I was made compulsorily redundant. I was on a 3 month notice, which I was paid in full for, on top of redundancy.

The first 30k of redundancy is not taxable, so your 8,500 would last a bit longer than that much worth of pay. However any notice paid IS taxable, because it's salary, not redundancy.

You have two children, one on the way and a SAHP on a TAs wage? Wow.

Whether he takes redundancy or not, you need to have a plan about how you are going to increase your earnings.

He found about it last night but we didn't have time to talk about it last night as we went to our other sons reception meeting. So i just feel we need to talk about it more. I think he is being impulsive with wanting to hand it in today.

I think it's really selfish of him to have made up his mind before discussing it properly with you. And as for putting the phone down on you. Well!

My feeling is that he's looking at over eight grand and thinking that it's ample and will go straight into savings. That he can waltz straight into working more hours at the other job and you'll have as much money coming in each month as you are now. He could be right but you are deserving of respect and he should be showing a modicum of it by discussing it with you first before he acts.

Over the weekend have him searching for other jobs and applying for them before he puts in his application for VR next week.

No-one wants to find out that they are not going to sail into alternative employment only after they've already burned their bridges.

I think he needs to do a bit more research about the merger - if there is a possible expectation of having his salary increased by 5K in October, he'd make back the redundancy pay in 2 years plus would still have a job (even if it's one he's not too keen on!).

IME redundancy is something you really have to think about and put the figures together properly - I know someone who took it, changed her mind, wasn't allowed stay in work, ended up unemployed long term.

Someone else - it got completely swallowed up as she set up her own business (where she ended up working long, long hours, and doing all the childcare as she worked from home)

I know of no one where it turned out to be the lovely windfall that it seemed to be at the start. (and a few years ago I worked in a large organisation that made 100's redundant, with a really good package - something like 8 week's of salary per year of service)

Woowoo- with both jobs he earns about 23,000 which although not brilliant we manage on. I went back to work part time after my first born but after my second the childcare was more than my wage so that was the deciding factor as i was all set to go back until i actually sat down and worked out i would be paying out more than i would be bringing in.

He did go to college in the evening to train as an electrician which he wants to do but although he is qualified he has no experience so cant get into it.

Totally agree with you Bitterandonly.