It might be tempting, with news of the latest lockdown, to put your head back under the duvet and forget that we’re in a new year. But there are a number of important employment law changes for 2021 that you need to be aware of.
- Changes to the national minimum wage – The government announced, back in November, that the national minimum wage would be changing from 1st April 2021. For workers aged 23 or over, the rate will be £8.91 per hour (the national living wage). For workers aged 21 or 22, the rate will be £8.36 per hour. At present the age from which employees are entitled to the national living wage (the highest rate) is 25, this will go down to 23 from 1 April 2021.
- Brexit and immigration – We’ve now reached the end of the Brexit transition period and that means that a new points based immigration system will applies equally to European Economic Area (EEA) nationals and other non-UK nationals. You need to make sure you understand how this affects your recruitment and remind existing EEA employees of the requirement to apply for settled or pre-settled status, if they have not already done so.
- Coronavirus – The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which was due to close on 31 October 2020, will remain open until 31 March 2021. From 1 November 2020, the scheme will cover 80% of furloughed employees’ wages (to a maximum of £2,500 per month – adjusted if the employee works part time). Of course, as we’re now in another national lockdown it remains to be seen whether this will change, yet again!
- Reforms to the IR35 rules on off-payroll working in the private sector – On 6th April 2021 reforms will come into effect that shift responsibility for determining the status of a contractor, and liability for deducting tax and national insurance if IR35 applies to the organisation engaging them. You need to review contracts and put in place the necessary procedures to ensure compliance.
- New rules for publishing modern slavery statements – We don’t know when the new rules will come into place but it will be mandatory to report on certain areas when publishing a modern slavery and human trafficking statement and to publish reports on a Government-run reporting service. Not only is there also going to be a single reporting deadline but this duty to publish a statement will be extended to public-sector bodies with a budget of £36m or more.
