Redundent Packages not big enough

Australians are being short-changed when being made redundant, with 26.9% of those that have been let go saying it took them more than four months to find a new job, but 32.3% say their payout only covered them for 10 weeks or less according to a survey by Talent2, Australias leading human resources and recruitment firm.

The survey of 1,734 respondents revealed that 49.1% of Australians have been made redundant at some point during their career.

Within one month of being made redundant, 40.8% of females had managed to find a new job, compared to only 27% of males. As well, it took 29.7% of males more than four months to find employment in comparison to only 20.6% of females.

Ms Liz Crowe of Talent2 says that being made redundant is one of the most stressful experiences in life with more than one in three people saying it rates a '5' when asked how stressful the experience was on a scale of '1' to '5' (5 being the most stressful).

"Unfortunately downsizing, making employees redundant, is a part of corporate life. Although most companies do all they can to avoid letting their staff go, sometimes it is simply the only solution to remain competitive. "

"Only one third of people that have been made redundant have been offered career transition support by their employer, yet 77.8% that have been made redundant would have liked, and feel it was the responsibility of their employer, to offer re-training, up-skilling and anything else it takes to make them employable soon after being retrenched."

"Many companies that are forced to cut back the size of their workforce are doing so not because they want to, but because they have to. They truly care about their staff and want to do the right thing by them and want to help them find new jobs as quickly as possible."