What legislation governs short-time of less than 50%? What is considered a reasonable amount of notice of imposing short-time and the duration of short-time? What recourse does an employee have if they are on short-time of 1 day a week (i.e. -20%) for a length of time that they deem unreasonable?

This is governed by the Redundancy Payments Acts 1967-2007 (‘RPA’), which defines short-time as being a working week of “less than 50%” of the normal working week.

There is no specific provision in the RPA with regard to the notice required to be given by an employer to impose short-time, but by analogy with all employment legislation, we would advise that reasonable notice be given (i.e. at least one week). There is also no provision regarding duration, only that short-time be imposed where the employer believes that the diminution in work will be temporary. An employee who is on short-time can claim a statutory redundancy payment after four or more consecutive weeks, or six weeks within a