First of all, many people may have seen a local report on or around 3 January on ITV stating that in addition to the Social Security Maternity Allowance updates, a period of statutory maternity leave is now in force. It is important to note that whilst there have been updates to Social Security’s maternity allowance (see Social Security’s website for info) there is currently no statutory maternity/parental/family leave in force in Jersey. The current expectation is for this to come into force in the second half of this year.

After a busy year last year with the introduction of amendments to the Employment Law and implementation of the Discrimination Law, 2015 is getting off to an equally busy start. Amendments were made to the Unfair Dismissal qualifying period (effective 1 January 2015) plus (as mentioned above) the maternity/family friendly proposals together with sex discrimination are all on the horizon for potential implementation later this year.

Unfair dismissal qualifying period now 52 weeks

Employees starting new employment on or after 1 January 2015, will have to accrue 52 weeks’ continuous service in order to qualify for the right not to be unfairly dismissed instead of 26 weeks’.

For the avoidance of doubt, the right not to be unfairly dismissed also includes the concept of constructive unfair dismissal.

Employers should note that the new qualifying period does not affect an Employee’s right to claim for any of the ‘automatic unfair dismissals’ which require no specific length of service. This change also does not affect fixed term contracts where the current 2/3rds or 13 weeks qualifying period still applies.

For employment which started on or before 31 December 2014, the qualifying period remains unchanged at 26 weeks.

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