Urgent Help needed - retraction of job offer.

MissKeith

Hope you folks can help me because I don't know where else to turn.

28 days ago, my partner got offered a job. He handed in his 30 days notice at his current place of employment, today on the 28th day of his notice period, his new place of employment retracted their job offer.

They made it clear that it was nothing to do with him or his application and it is solely a business decision. His old place of employment have already employed someone to replace him. The new place have offered him a measly six weeks pay in 'compensation'.

He has had his start date and contract come through the post and nothing in writing to state their withdrawal of his job.

My question is, can they do this? My partner is now unemployed and absolutely heartbroken over this. I feel this cannot be legal, do we have a leg to stand on?

SarEl

I am afraid that the can, and six weeks pay is more than he is entitled to. They can dismiss for any reason in the first year, and notice in the first month is nil. Sorry, but there is nothing you can do.

McKneff

Wow, how awful for you both.

Are there any other vacancies at the place he works at now.

Good luck with the job hunting...........

an9i77

Rotten luck but short answer is yes. So long as they paid him for his notice (in accordance with the contractual notice period which I am assuming is six weeks or less). They can give notice at any point during the first year, for any reason, in this case it is before the job has started but the principle is the same

pinklady21

Sorry to hear about this. I am very sympathetic, a similar thing happened to me a number of years ago. Not only had I already resigned, I had appointed my successor, given notice on my rented flat and booked the removers (new job was 500 miles away.)
At the time it felt like a complete disaster.

However, take heart, your partner is clearly highly employable, so he may find that he is not unemployed for very long.

In my case, I managed to find another job within a few weeks, and it was a better one with a far better employer than the rats who decided to withdraw their offer of employment!

All the best.

caringa

So sorry to hear what has happened - my daughter had the same thing happen to hear three weeks ago. She was in the middle of celebrating with her colleagues on her last day, 3 days before starting her new job and her job offer and contract that she had signed was retracted.

She too was gutted but remember that sometime these things happen for a reason and the rats that treat you this way obviously dont deserve you! Best of luck in the job search!!

MissKeith

Thanks for the info. We're at a loss now. With three kids, a mortgage and debt we were only *just* managing, we really didn't need this. I just hope he gets another job and soon! My wages went down three months ago and is nowhere near to keep a roof over our heads.

Not what I wanted to hear but thank you to all anyway.

paddyrg

What line of work? Can he look at contracting/freelance whilst applying for other FTE positions? Eg, if he is in IT or an IT-related position, jobserve.com lists all the IT contracts in the country, they generally need people at short notice for a specific job/skill, and pay well toboot. And he may well find that company try to keep him on full-time afterwards (it is very common for people to go contract-to-permie)

cr1mson

I know you may not wish to do this as it would possibly put someone in same position as he is but has he told his existing employer. They may wish to retain him. Obviously they might not but surely worth telling them just in case.

C

MissKeith

He told his Regional Manager (as his manager is off at the moment) who told him his position had been filled. HOWEVER, the RGM called him back today offering his current job back at least for the next quarter! So we're okay for the next few months until he finds something better. I'm so relieved I could cry! Thank you all for the help!

DCFC79

Get him to get a cv together if not already got 1 or change it to show he has now left last employer. Also sign up for agencies on monday for temp work or even get looking for an xmas job whilst looking for a permanent 1.