UK plans to protect employees against unfair dismissal from their first day in a new job threatens to reduce the number of candidates hired from underrepresented backgrounds, employment experts said, as the government estimated the policy could cost businesses tens of millions of pounds a year.
The measure is one of 28 changes to employment rights outlined in a government bill placed before Parliament earlier this month and debated in the House of Commons on Monday. Even though it’s not yet law, employers are already considering changing their recruitment practices, according to leading employment lawyers.
Yet the change to unfair dismissal rules won’t remove governmental pressure for making workforces more representative of the population. What it could do, according to Deborah Margolis, a senior counsel at GQ|Littler, is move diversity lower down on the list of priorities for employers.