...as an employment tribunal found that a leisure centre worker was unfairly dismissed so that his employer could avoid paying pension costs after he turned 50.
Employers have shelled out a huge £13.4 billion in redundancy payments over the last three years following job losses as a result of the recession and subsequent sluggish economic growth.
Lloyds Banking Group is to axe a further 15,000 jobs in a bid to make annual savings of £1.5 billion by 2014, with most of the cuts likely to come from middle management and back office functions.
Hello! And welcome back as we enter 2012, with a busy year ahead of us all. With talk of double-dip recessions, a possible partial or even full break-up of the Eurozone and unemployment rates set to hit nearly 9%, topics such as organisational streamlining, staff resilience and talent management are likely to be on many an HR professional's lips over the next 12 months.
But to lighten the gloom here in the UK, we also have the Queen's Diamond Jubilee and its attendant public holidays to look forward to at the start of June. Followed by two weeks of Olympic Games from 27 July to 12 August and the Paralympics from 29 August to 9 September, each generating their own excitement, but also issues to work through for hard-pressed HR departments trying to sort out the multifarious staffing issues in advance.
So with an interesting but challenging year to come, HRZone promises to be with you, supporting you all the way and providing our usual insightful blend of news, analysis, community blogs and expert comment to help you sort the wheat from the chaff. As ever, we love to hear from you too so feel free to either post your words of wisdom to our blog section yourself or, in the case of longer, more in-depth ‘expert voice’ articles, drop me a line with any ideas to cath.everett@siftmedia.co.uk.....
Cath Everett
HRZone Editor
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