Carers UK has published a new report, ‘Taking the next step for working carers - introducing a new right to paid Carer’s Leave’ .
The report calls on the Government to legislate to introduce a new statutory right to paid Carer’s Leave for employees with unpaid caring responsibilities, building on the five days of unpaid leave that was recently secured through the Carer’s Leave Act 2023.
The report sets out our vision for all working carers to have a statutory right to two weeks of paid Carer’s Leave a year, accompanied by a longer period of up to six months of unpaid leave. However, as employment rights are often built over time, we recommend that a pragmatic next step would be for the Government to introduce a statutory right to five days of paid Carer’s Leave during this Parliament.
Previous Carers UK research highlighted that around 600 people a day are having to give up work to provide unpaid care to family members or friends, due to a lack of flexibility and support in the workplace. 80% of working carers we surveyed last year said that having access to paid Carer’s Leave would support them to juggle work and unpaid care, with particular benefits for women, older workers, and those who cannot afford to take unpaid time off work to care.
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This would be very helpful, and would remove some of the stress of juggling work and caring; but who will pay the carer’s wages? Ideally the government would help with this otherwise I can see companies being reluctant to employ carers.
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Yep - ANOTHER financial burden on employers who WILL undoubtedly think twice if they know a person is a Carer.
Whilst I welcome the move to push for this, it doesn’t do anything to help those who have had to give up work to Care and are surviving on Carer’s Allowance. I am “lucky” to have some savings which take me outside the scope of any other benefits, but they wont last forever and were intended to be for my retirement, so I didn’t have to rely on State Benefits. Well that will be out the window before long and I’ll be claiming extra then!! If it happens before I reached State Retirement age then I will be under pressure to find a job… Catch 22?
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Caring is very unpredictable and really really hard for the carer to hold down a job. If they need to leave immediately to deal with an emergency or go on Carers Leave it is very hard on the rest of the team. If I had a small business sadly I would be wary of employing a carer for the reasons listed above despite having every sympathy. Yes some jobs do entail ‘working from home’ part of the time and this may work if the employer flexible in their approach. I would have LOVED to have gone for the job at my local library 5 hours a week on a Saturday BUT with the chance to do more hours to cover sickness/holiday but it was simply not feasible whilst caring for an unpredictable difficult 85 year old.
Sounds fab in theory but…
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