a startup based in London just fired 10% of their workforce. all were given two options: government's furlough scheme where the state pays 80% of the salary, or outright dismissal. interestingly, half chose to quit.
That said, I'm surprised half of people turned down 2k/month to job hunt.
Ah, I see you've never applied for Universal Credit. Immediate, it ain't.
Generally uk dev pay is very bad compared to US or even other Europe.
Contract work used to be basically the only way to make good money but this has now been nobbled. Not a good city to work in.
As a result permie developers generally don't have a huge amount of a savings.
Moved to New York following Brexit, now making literally twice that. (Paying twice that for housing, too, but my housing is more like 15 minutes from work instead of 60 and I have a real subway option instead of putting up with Southern Rail and the strikes.)
This isn't true. You'll get new style JSA for 6 months [1] pending you have contributed NI for the past 2/3 years which almost all will have.
https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility
You're talking about universal credit which yes you won't qualify for with greater than 16k savings (pension savings or HTB ISA are however are excluded).
If you make them redundant instead then you must give them a redundancy payment as well. However, this only protects employees after two years and in any case it's capped at a low level relative to typical salaries in fields like tech, so this might not have been worth much to the staff at a startup. Many employers do offer more than this voluntarily, but I wouldn't necessarily assume any startup did.
Maybe the staff who chose to leave were more concerned about the future viability of the business, an extended pause in their career development, or both. Or maybe they really were offered voluntary redundancy on favourable terms.
Curiously, just yesterday the UK government announced some new measures aimed directly at supporting startups, particularly tech startups in their early stages that aren't yet making money. Apparently at least someone in government recognises the business model and feels it will be better to protect that part of our economy during the downturn, which is a remarkably enlightened view given how badly successive governments in the UK have treated small businesses in the past.
Although obviously you should consult with a proper employment lawyer.
Obviously this means employers who are abusing the system to try to force a pay cut on people or fire them by the back door when they weren't genuinely redundant may be out of luck. I'm not sure anyone is going to have much sympathy for employers doing that, though.
Do you have a link about this please? Hadn't heard of it until now
It sounds like some sort of investment-matching scheme, where the existing investors have to put more money in to keep the business viable but the government will then make some sort of contribution as well.