Potential redundancy, where do I stand re benefits?

sghughes42

This is probably a bit of a complicated one but I'm trying to understand what, if anything, I would qualify for.

I've been on furlough since mid March, however due to the impact of Covid 19 my employer has seen a massive reduction in business with no sign of it recovering and so are having to make redundancies. It's looking like I'll be one of those as none of the available roles in the restructuring would suit me - they are all customer facing and I have a significant speech impediment which would pretty much prevent me doing them, quite aside from the fact I'd be the least qualified of the people going for them. My role is a bit of an odd-man-out, an electronic engineer in what is predominantly a software and service business so it's not such a surprise that is the area where they retrench to try and rebuild the business.

Now, normally I believe I'd qualify for contribution-based JSA for 6 months even though my wife is still working and we have savings. What I'm not sure of is how this works in my situation. Aside from my main job in my spare time I do some self-employed work selling on eBay. This is all declared, taxed etc. It is very seasonal however which makes it hard to say how many hours and how much I'd make, however summer is usually a very quiet time.

Even though I will be seeking a new job I'm not sure if this self employment would disqualify me from JSA?

Under current circumstances I can't see me getting a new job any time soon so while we wouldn't struggle badly immediately I want to plan for it being up to a year or even more before I found work and make sure we can survive for that long on redundancy / savings / my wife's income.

poppy12345

To claim New style JSA you must have paid the correct NI contributions in tax years April 2017 to March 2019.

You can work less than 16 hours and claims JSA BUT you will only be able to earn a very small amount of money each week before your JSA is reduced £1 for £1 and think it's £5 per week. This means that if you earn £30 per week then your JSA will reduce by £25 per week. Whether or not it's worth you claiming JSA will depend on how much you earn.

sghughes42

Thanks, no issues on the contributions, unbroken record since 1997.

How do they calculate earnings when it is self employment? Is it rolling or taken as an average over the year? If rolling it is going to be so hard factoring in things like fees, expenses for stock etc. If it's an average over the year then it would reduce to zero even though I'll likely be making little or nothing over the coming months.