On 4/2/10 16:29, Raphael Mankin wrote:
It's 9 months of full salary more expensive to hire a woman who gets pregnant, takes her full maternity leave and then decides not to return to work.
Actually, an employer is only obligated by law to pay statutory maternity pay. There is a legal obligation to maintain all terms and conditions *except* pay. http://bit.ly/dCtgpd
It's up to the employer what other benefits they offer, e.g. full salary for 6 months, followed half salary for 6 months is reasonably typical in my experience but there's no requirement that I know of under law to do so.
As I understand it, it would be legally acceptable to frame an employment contract that pays nothing other than statutory maternity pay, which can be recovered from the government anyway.
Whether that would be a sound business decision in the age of social media networks is left as an exercise for the reader :-)
S.
