Employment ministry begins process for Air Seychelles staff redundancy |20 April 2018

The redundancy process for some 130 staff of Air Seychelles has started now that the Ministry of Employment, Immigration & Civil Status has received the notification for the redundancy intention.

On Friday last week, the ministry received and registered the formal notification from Air Seychelles of the latter’s intention to make redundant a group of staff employed in posts that have been removed due to the restructuring of the company.

It was the principal secretary for employment, Jules Baker, who made the announcement to the press yesterday afternoon at the ministry’s head office at Independence House.

As per the legal employment framework, Air Seychelles has through its redundancy notification intent, sent the list of all its employees, their posts and salaries and another list of all the employees being made redundant, the posts they occupied and the criteria used to terminate their employment.

Meanwhile, Air Seychelles held a consultative meeting yesterday morning with a first batch of staff being made redundant where they were informed of the proposed redundancy and to also give them the chance to challenge the decision for them to be made redundant.

The meeting with the second group is being held today.

PS Baker explained that competent officers from the ministry have 21 working days, in consultation with Air Seychelles, to give a verdict on the redundancy intent notice based individually on a case by case basis on posts being made redundant.

A decision will also be taken on those that will be approved and not approved.

If no agreement is reached after the 21 days, both parties will have seven days to appeal to the minister responsible for employment for a final decision to be taken.

PS Baker noted that Air Seychelles has notified that it is implementing a redeployment exercise whereby it is seeking employment in other sectors for staff wanting to take up an employment offer.

Air Seychelles announced that it was downsizing its staff last month due to the fact that it is returning back two of its planes and also re-routing its operations from international to regional routes.