Finding A Job Whilst Pregnant

[bednobs]

My sister in law has been a full time mum since her baby was born 2 years ago. She decided to start looking for a job, but has found out she is pregnant. She has some interviews lined up. Is she obliged to tell potential employers she is pregnant? If so when, at interview or when/if they offer her the job?

[naomi24]

diddlydo, //Frankly I despair.//

You’d despair even more if you were an employer who employed someone in good faith to do a vital job only to be told a few months down the line that she was no longer available. Nevertheless he has to keep the job open for her (in case she decides to return) and therefore can’t employ someone to replace her. What about him and his business?

[Prudie]

But it's not equality is it. No-one would expect a man to take a job knowing he was likely to leave it within months for up to a year and expect his post when he returned. Sometimes women have to accept that if they want the benefits of being a mother than holding a job down needs to wait.

[diddlydo]

Naomi - the boss can appoint someone on a temporary contract while the woman is on Mat Leave so what's the problem?

[ummmm]

They have to be trained, Diddly, at the time and expense of the employers.

[naomi24]

diddlydo, the problem is firstly that people with the necessary specialist knowledge or skills are not always readily available (and I speak from experience there), secondly that money and time may have to be spent on training a 'temp', not to mention potentially paying higher wages (bad business management - and costly!), and thirdly why should an employer or the rest of the staff be inconvenienced by someone who got the job under false pretences?

[diddlydo]

What false pretences???

[Cloverjo]

I remember Natasha Kaplinski taking a highly paid news reading job when she was secretly newly pregnant and then taking a year off on mat leave. I thought that was a bit cheeky, to say the least.
I did take a new job when I was just pregnant and didn't tell the employer. They sacked me not long after for not being 'chatty' enough, so I don't feel guilty about not telling them about the pregnancy.

[naomi24]

Not telling the interviewer she's pregnant, thereby giving the impression that she would be joining the company and working with them for the foreseeable future.

[jim360]

Bearing in mind that this is the Law section, and therefore moral considerations are secondary, it might be better not to get too far down the rabbit hole about the moral question of hiring pregnant women or not. Women are, I believe, expected and required to inform the employer they are pregnant with at least 15 weeks' notice of the due date, and so in that sense it seems courteous to inform prospective employers at interviews, but not obligatory at such an early stage.

The simple fact is that under current law, women are not obliged to reveal their pregnancies, and employers who take pregnancy as a reason to fire an employee, or deny a candidate a job, would be risking criminal action. I hope that those who say they wouldn't hire pregnant women (regardless of their ability to do the job) are speaking only hypothetically, and certainly I hope that they aren't encouraging employers to break the law.

It's also worth pointing out that paternity leave is a thing, so the argument that "No-one would expect a man to take a job knowing he was likely to leave it within months for up to a year and expect his post when he returned" is incorrect. For obvious reasons, the mother is currently entitled to more leave than the father, but both enjoy the protection of the law on matters of pregnancy.

If one wants to discuss the morality of the law, and whether it is unfair to employers or not, then this isn't the thread in which to do so.

[bednobs]

thanks all. i was chatting to her last night - one of the jobs she is going for is ironically for maternity cover (so it's fixed term for a year).
She has decided to go for the interviews, and let the employer know if they offer it to her