Compulsory redundancy and stamp

alkip

I'm being made compulsory redundant on March 31st, how do I go about paying my stamp to keep up my state pension, I'm going to be taking some time out after a very protracted and stressful process and as such don't really want to register for JSA where I'll need to search for a new job from day 1.

sew109

I would think long and hard about whether to take a break or not when you are made redundant.

chuckalicious_2

sew109 wrote: »

I would think long and hard about whether to take a break or not when you are made redundant.

Could you elaborate please? I'm doing the exact same thing.

AndyBSG

You only need 30 years of NI contributions to qualify for the state pension.

So, if you're only planning on taking a break for a short period of time then it shouldn't really be something you have to worry about.

alkip

AndyBSG wrote: »

You only need 30 years of NI contributions to qualify for the state pension.

So, if you're only planning on taking a break for a short period of time then it shouldn't really be something you have to worry about.

Thank you Andy, I've been paying in for 27 and a bit years and have every intention of working again as I'm only 46 so that's very good to know.

alkip

chuckalicious wrote: »

I'm doing the exact same thing.

Good luck to you with whatever you do chuckalicious.

Takeaway_Addict

sew109 wrote: »

I would think long and hard about whether to take a break or not when you are made redundant.

I would guess the point regarding this is that the longer you go between jobs the harder it becomes to get one you want.

anniecave

Assuming you've been employed for over 2 years, then you'd qualify for contributions based job-seeker's allowance.

When I was redundant I signed on for this, and at no time did I feel that the job centre staff were "pressurising me" into doing anything more than looking for a suitable job. I looked for jobs by signing up to agencies and looking online and in the local paper (never saw anything relevant in the last category!) and applied for jobs that I felt were suitable for me.

This was a couple of years ago, but I assume there may well be a difference in what they expect depending on whether you're on contributions based JSA or income based. I used an excel spreadsheet for a job seeking activity record and they seemed to accept this fine - no-one ever looked in detail at it and saw that the vast majority of my job-seeking activity was mainly just looking at likely websites. I just followed the process, turned up at the job-centre as requested.

Once you've been out of work and claiming for more than 6 months then you'd be on income based JSA and at that point I would assume they expect more in terms of applying for jobs etc, but you'd have six months before you'd get to that stage!

I was only out of work for a couple of months in the end... got a temp job via an agency and ended up being taken on in the end.

Potential employers do look at how long you've been out of work for (a long time CAN indicate to them you are out of the loop and will find it harder to get back into the work routine), and they also ask what you've been doing since your previous job, so have your answer to that last one ready. I was studying distance learning for a work related qualification and that seemed to be an acceptable answer!

All the best...