Costs of EU Maternity plans

[Infinite Chaos]

European plans to change maternity rights will cost UK firms £2.5bn a year, a business group has warned.

Under proposals to be voted on next month, women leaving work to have a child would be entitled to 20 weeks' leave on full pay.

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Women in the UK are currently entitled to a year off, with the first six weeks on 90% pay, followed by 33 weeks on Statutory Maternity Pay of just under £125 a week. The remainder is unpaid.

'Recession aftermath'

The BCC put the bill for extending maternity pay at full pay in the UK alone at £2.5bn - using data from an assessment carried out on behalf of the European Parliament.
BBC Business

£2.5billion a year costs to manufacturers and industry at this time seems a bad move to make. 20 weeks or nearly 5 months off on paid leave is a huge burden to smaller companies and industries - I can imagine if the projections are right that people will try not to hire women of child bearing age in future.

Is this going to be one of those well meant directives that has the reverse effect? (One other- not EU law - was to allow sperm donor children to trace their donor fathers: this led to a drop in sperm donors coming forward.

 

[alexa]

£2.5billion a year costs to manufacturers and industry at this time seems a bad move to make. 20 weeks or nearly 5 months off on paid leave is a huge burden to smaller companies and industries - I can imagine if the projections are right that people will try not to hire women of child bearing age in future.

Is this going to be one of those well meant directives that has the reverse effect? (One other- not EU law - was to allow sperm donor children to trace their donor fathers: this led to a drop in sperm donors coming forward.

It is clearly something which will be of more benefit to the better paid so I would need to agree with you that at this time when cuts are being made and local services may not be available to those in real need, it is not the time to make this change.

 

[PeteEU]

£2.5billion a year costs to manufacturers and industry at this time seems a bad move to make. 20 weeks or nearly 5 months off on paid leave is a huge burden to smaller companies and industries - I can imagine if the projections are right that people will try not to hire women of child bearing age in future.

Is this going to be one of those well meant directives that has the reverse effect? (One other- not EU law - was to allow sperm donor children to trace their donor fathers: this led to a drop in sperm donors coming forward.

2.5 billion is not much in the grand scale of things, even in a recession. Just make the bankers forfeit a months bonus and that is paid for. Rather give British women the same rights as other European women on this subject than let fat bankers suck the life out of the British economy.

All the new rules are doing is make the rules across Europe unified as far as I can see, so business cant "shop around" on this front. After all if business had their way, women would be fired for getting pregnant if they at all got hired because they were women. I remember back in the day when the whole idea of "maternity" leave would be the end of European business as we knew it, and that not being able to let a woman go because she was with child was a catastrophe for business.... that was not that long ago, and European business are the better for it if you ask me. Compared to pre maternity leave times, European companies are far more lean and mean so to say, and our productivity is far far far higher than it was then. Seems that if people are happy and feel secure in their personal lives, productivity improves.. who would have thought!... certainly not business