Italian firm deems female employees ‘not the main bread winners anyway’

The uncertain economic climate poses many worries for companies these days, and it is likely that many redundancies need to be made in order to survive the ‘storm’. You would think then as an employer, you would consider performance of employees, absence, and time management as factors when making the difficult decision of who to give the bad news to.

However recently, a small, Italian engineering company did not consider such factors. The firm decided that the best decision was to let the majority of the female employees go, while keeping its’ male workforce. The women were made redundant on the grounds that they could then spend more time at home with their families, and ‘weren’t the main bread winners anyway’.

Jaw drop!

Sex discrimination still counts for the highest number of claims in employment tribunals in the UK and are usually the most costly in terms of time and solicitor fees. If this had happened in the UK, then we would advise: Bring your cheque book...

Let’s hope these attitudes stay in Italy!

Grow Your Own

NEET is a government acronym for 16-24 year olds who are currently "Not in Education, Employment, or Training". It was first used in the United Kingdom but its use has spread to other countries, including Japan, China, and South Korea. Which just goes to show that David Cameron is right; we are all in this together. The statistics are terrifying; almost 1 in 6 youngsters are now on benefits and unlikely to get off them unless something dramatic takes place. In response, the Coalition has launched a funding programme to try to encourage employers to take on apprentices. There are apprenticeships from a variety of industry sectors; in fact anything from accountancy to floristry and IT to veterinary nursing.


There are three levels of apprenticeship; Intermediate, Advanced and Higher with some leading to degree courses. The Company employs the apprentice and pays them. Currently the rate is a measly £2.50 per hour for all apprentices in their first year but thereafter those over 19 get the minimum wage. Fortunately many employers do pay more than the minimum, recognising everyone has to eat. Although most of the training is in the workplace, external training costs for 16 and 17 year olds are met 100% by the Government with a 50% contribution given for older employees.

The HR Dept recommends that you have an apprenticeship contract in place. This differs from the normal employment contract in that you commit to supporting them until they achieve their qualifications and it becomes difficult to terminate their employment before that date. On the positive side there is nothing as rewarding as growing and developing your own staff and by sharing their success you also get the return on your investment.

Blue skies... Broken Hearts...

Abolishing paid maternity leave and ignoring certain EU employment laws were more like a grey sky thinking initiative rather than probably just a free idea session by Steve Hilton an aide to PM David Cameron, which has been released to media. But it is worth a comment or two..

It doesn’t appear there were calls for maternity leave itself to be cancelled but the burden of payment.

An individual going off on maternity and of course additional paternity leave will have an impact on a small team when a member of staff leaves for up to 12 months, that probably is the most unspoken gripe from business owners.

It is widely commented in the media that maternity leave creates a barrier for women seeking employment and an anonymous survey of business owners would probably indicate that the maternity leave/flexible working/discrimination rules puts off employers, both male and female, off employing women of child bearing age.

But these are the rules and every business has to adapt to a changing business environment both internally and externally to survive and flourish whatever the economic times.

The reality is at some point in the near future paid maternity leave will increase again and Mr Hilton’s may again come to the surface.

We just hope that “blue sky thinking” doesn’t return to the day to day management vocabulary to be honest!