Anna Birtwistle: What will the two year unfair dismissal qualifying period mean for younger workers?

Solicitor Anna Birtwistle presents her reaction to today's news that the Government has confirmed that the increase in the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection from one to two years will not be retrospective.

As XpertHR's John Read writes: "BIS has confirmed to various parties, including XpertHR, that the Government will recommend to Parliament that the change should only apply to employees starting on or after 6 April 2012. In other words, employees who started before 6 April 2012 will remain able to claim unfair dismissal after one year of continuous service."

In this post, Anna asks whether this change could have an adverse impact on younger workers? And could these potential adverse effects be amplified further for young people who have undertaken unpaid internships, and/or who fall within protected groups?

Anna Birtwistle is a Solicitor at specialist employment and partnership law firm CM Murray LLP, based in Canary Wharf. Anna has a particular interest in discrimination and cross border employment law issues. You can follow Anna on Twitter.

Anna Birtwistle: What will the two year unfair dismissal qualifying period mean for younger workers?
So, the Government has confirmed that it will recommend to Parliament that the increased two year service requirement to claim unfair dismissal will only affect those starting work on or after 6 April 2012 (i.e. it won't apply retrospectively).

Phew! That makes it fine then.

Or not.

I have made my general feelings about the increased length of service provision clear in other blog posts (see the links below to my previous posts for XpertHR) but hearing today's twitterings (thank you, PLC Employment), my immediate response was this: What about the kids?

The kids are alright?

Well, perhaps kids isn't the right word. More accurately, we are talking about the country's future workforce: the individuals we will be looking to in years to come to try and prevent another recession, the tax payers - if they ever find jobs - who will be bankrolling the current Government's pensions (ahem, as well as ours).

It is already widely publicised that young people are one of the groups most adversely affected by the recession, whether entering the job market as school leavers or graduates. In recent months, the youth unemployment number has passed the so-called "million milestone" for the first time since comparable records began in 1992.

Now, whilst it is correct that everyone moving jobs will be placed in the same position come April, the degree to which this will affect young people can, I believe, be distinguished.

Young people: More vulnerable in the post-April 2012 employment sphere?
In my view, young people will be more vulnerable in this new employment sphere to the risk of some employers using this increase in the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection from one to two years to benefit from cheap labour before making a calculated decision to terminate ("One year 11 months, tick!"), before moving on to the next skivvy.

With such vast numbers of unemployed people of the same level flooding the market, young workers might be viewed by some employers as readily replaceable.

Now of course such an attitude would not even occur to most employers, the majority of whom will invest both time and money in training and mentoring their junior staff (I'm pleased to say that I see plenty such-minded employers).

But a minority of employers could be tempted to take this approach, particularly if they find themselves desperately struggling to survive in these dire economic times.