Tier 2 (General): Voluntary Redundancy - to be or not to be?

[aminmdh1010]

Hi All,

This is an urgent matter, so any suggestion will be more than appreciated.

I am on a Tier 2 (General) Visa which is valid until May 2021. However, due to the down turn in the sales of the company, the authority has announced redundancy plan which has been planned to be carried out within next few weeks. However, they have given opportunity to come people forward voluntarily for the redundancy until next week Wednesday.

I am expected to complete the 10 years long residency route on 23rd January 2019 - if can stay until then legally. My understanding is application can be done 28 days early - so that means after 25th December 2018 I would have been able to apply for PR if everything were fine.

Now I am thinking whether should I go for voluntary redundancy? As I have a 3 months notice period which should take me until the end of November 2018 and the Home office gives 60 days of curtailment ?

My understanding is the company has to inform the Home office within 10 days. My question is : is it 10 days from when I will give them the notice or when the notice will come into effect after 3 months?

Any relevant suggestions will be appreciated cordially.

Thanks a lot.

[cyclina1]

what if you not take the voluntary? Can you stay in the job?

[aminmdh1010]

Hi cyclina1, thanks for your reply.

Its a bit difficult to tell what they are planning behind the scene. One thing is certain that they have already decided to redundant certain number of people. They have just given a window for the people to take this opportunity of voluntary redundancy which will enable the employee to end the contract by giving them the notice. On the other hand, as per my understanding, if they don't find anyone for voluntary redundancy, they will go for compulsory redundancy in which case, they are not liable to give employee any notice. Thats why I was thinking whether it is a good idea to go for it because in that case there might be a distant logical option to get into the 10 year long residency maturity period.

However, the whole concept depends on this vital question: when the 10 days period of informing the Home Office starts - a) is it when the EMPLOYEE has given the notice or b) when it will come into action or whether its upto the EMPLOYER to choose from a or b.

Once again, thanks for your reply.

[CR001]

if they don't find anyone for voluntary redundancy, they will go for compulsory redundancy in which case, they are not liable to give employee any notice.

You get paid out your notice period when you are made redundant and don't serve it. This is usually the case for voluntary or compulsory redundancy.

[rajivunique]

Hi,
If this gives you some light, let me share one experience that happened recently with one of my friend.

My friend Johnny was working on Tier 2 general in X city, due to personal reasons he wanted to move to city Y and he got the job as well in city Y. He gave 1 month notice as required and in this 1 month he got a CoS from his new employer and applied for a new Tier 2 via Priority service and got the new BRP in hand at the end of 2nd week of his application. So he was continuing to work on the new BRP in his old job during his notice period. Once notice period ended, he had a gap of 10 days to join the new job and mainly to cover this gap of unemployment of 10 days he had applied for the new T2 visa on priority basis which I mentioned earlier to avoid any issues.

Now Johnny joined his new Job and exactly after 15 days he received a curtailment letter from Home Office stating that they have been informed by his employer that he has left the job and so he has 60 days to return to home country.

So in a way I was able to understand that his first employer only informed HO after his last working day and not when he served the notice before a month.

Funnily enough the curtailment notice also stated that they don't have any record of Johnny applying for any new leave to remain application wherein the reality was he already had got his new CoS/BRP almost a month ago, which also indicates that the moment they got the news from his first employer that he has left the job, they immediately shoot out the curtailment letter without even making full investigation which would have shown them that he now has a valid visa already and on the other side Johnny is still under speculation how he needs to respond to HO informing about he has a valid visa to stay and not what the curtailment letter states.

Share your thoughts..

Thanks,
RJ