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MATERNITY LAW MAY MAKE WORK HARDER FOR CAPABLE WOMEN

YOU'RE NOT HIRED: Sir Alan says legislation makes some employers ignore younger women

Sunday July 20,2008

By Jimmy Young

I'VE spent all my working life as a freelance in industries where being male or female didn’t figure very strongly when it came to getting work.

If a female singer or presenter sold more records or put more bums on seats than I did, then she worked but I didn’t. All of which appears to represent politically correct sex equality, except that that is not quite true.

The rule of freelance working is “no play, no pay” and nature conspires against women.

If a woman working freelance decides to have a baby, she may find it difficult to earn money during the latter stages of her pregnancy and confinement.

There have been many attempts to make working life fairer for women, but biological facts have to be faced. Babies who bring joy to mothers and their partners can bring problems for employers, especially small employers.

At present women receive nine months of paid maternity leave if they have been in employment for at least six months.

The minimum requirement for an employer is for them to pay 90 per cent of a woman’s salary for six weeks, followed by £117 a week for a further 33 weeks.

The employer can reclaim 92 per cent of this from the state, but must hold the job open and get no refund if a woman decides not to return to work.

A woman on maternity leave is also entitled to bonuses or pension contributions that are paid while she is away.

The nine months of maternity leave is to be extended to 12 months from the end of this year.

Nicola Brewer, the chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, appears to be in favour of increasing the burdens placed on employers.

She quotes the disparity between men’s two weeks’ paternity leave and the 12 months to be afforded to women. Ms Brewer claims this creates an unequal sharing of caring. She says fathers should be entitled to 12 weeks of leave on 90 per cent of their earnings following the birth of a child.

Employers, especially small firms, are alarmed. The Federation of Small Businesses has called for a reality check on parental leave, and wants a brake applied to legislation that is moving “too fast and too furious”.

The law may actually be backfiring. It is unlawful to ask a potential employee in a job interview whether she plans to have children, causing 80 per cent of personnel managers to declare that they would “think twice” before hiring a newly married woman.

Sir Alan Sugar says the legislation means that many employers simply ignore the CV of a woman in her 20s or 30s.

I am strongly in favour of sex equality but it would be supremely ironic if legislation intended to safeguard women’s employment prospects caused capable women to be passed over for less capable men.

* E-mail Jimmy at jimmy.young@express.co.uk.