Community: Real Life

Being made redundant

University student Sarah recently became a victim of the credit crunch. Having worked at Woolworths for a year-and-a-half, she was laid off without any redundancy pay.

Sarah

I'm in my first year at university and up until January I'd been working part-time at Woolworths to earn some extra money. I hadn't really heard much about redundancy until recently as the credit crunch and the recession has been in the news a lot over the last year.

Still, I never expected it to affect me because I was working at a well-established company. When we asked if everything would be OK with our jobs, our manager reassured us that our branch was not going to be shut down.

The shock

Hearing that I was going to lose my job it came as quite a shock. One Saturday the manager called all the employers together and told us that the store was going to be shutting down the following weekend. It all felt very blasé and after that I had to get on with my shift just as if nothing had happened.

At that point there had been no public announcement that our shop was to close down, along with every other Woolworths in the country, so we weren't even allowed to say anything to the customers about it.

"When we asked if everything would be OK with our jobs, our manager reassured us that our branch was not going to be shut down."

We were given redundancy packs, which had job centre leaflets and information about where to look for jobs. It was a bit like "Here's the stuff, just get on with it". The managers also asked us to help pack the shop up ready to close it. Although the organisation as a whole hadn't been particularly supportive, our manager was very helpful and showed us how to fill out the redundancy forms.

Redundancy pay

Unfortunately, I wasn't given any redundancy pay because I'd only worked there for a year-and-a-half, but I did get holiday pay and pay in lieu of notice. If I'd worked there for two years I would have received redundancy pay - even though I worked part-time I would have been entitled to a lump-sum based on my weekly earnings.

I've had lots of problems finding another job after being made redundant because it seems like there's no one hiring at the moment. Everyone's going through the same uncertainty and people are left wondering whether they're going to be the next ones to go.

It's pretty terrible trying to find something new and as I'm a student there's not much I am entitled to - for example, to get Jobseeker's Allowance you have to be available for full-time work. I already receive a loan and it's expected that I'd be benefiting from some sort of parental contribution, or that I'll be able to get another part-time job. I can't claim a bursary because my Mum's salary is over the threshold of what it needs to be for me to apply for it.

It's not nice being made redundant at the age of 18, but I guess I'll just have to get on with looking for another job.

Interviewed by Julia Pearlman

Updated: 03/09/2010


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