Gov't Is Wrecking the Job Market for Women
Why would any boss hire one now, asks Alexandra Shulman.


...It is also the very issue that drives a stream of women into my office to discuss their futures, their maternity leaves, four-day working weeks, possible job shares, all now encouraged by recent legislation.


Nobody can legislate a route through the conflict between work and motherhood.

Nobody can predict the visceral love you feel for your children, the fear you have when they are small that when you are not physically there, they might come to harm.
Neither can laws help the sickening exhaustion of endless, sleepless nights combined with working days and the seeming impossibility of achieving success as a worker, a mother, a wife, even at times as a human being.

But while a slew of government policies are aimed at helping working women achieve a more satisfactory existence, are they not losing sight of the real workplace picture?

And are they ignoring the evidence, not documented but heard in the beat of the tom-toms if you listen hard enough, that some of this legislation might even be harming women's chances of employment?...

...I met a woman last week who heads up a small company. 'You're not allowed to say it, but the reality is that the maternity situation is a nightmare.


'Of course what happens is that the younger ones in the office step up to fill the gap - and,' she whispered, 'they're cheaper.

'At the end of a year, how much do I really need that person back?'
Successful fashion entrepreneur Anya Hindmarch, who has built her own business while bringing up five children, adds another dissident voice.

A full-time jobs means full-time work - not doing the school run as someone else solves the latest office crisis

'If we are not careful (and I speak as a mother and an employer), maternity leave and benefits will become too biased towards the mother and not considerate enough for the employer.

'In which case, it can start to work against women as it becomes too complicated and expensive to employ them. To me, it shouts of shooting ourselves in the foot.' ...



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