Employment gap and UC payments

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shaba999

both my wife and I work, we have 3 children all school age and we rent our home.
We rely on UC to top up our wages as my full time wage is rubbish and my wife only works part time.

I recently started a new job and am still in the probationary period. The job isn’t working out as I seem to be pushed into doing overtime which is the norm there for everyone.
it hasn’t gone down well with the boss with me stating this, I want to balance home life so I’m not expecting to pass the probation period which ends in a couple of weeks.

I managed to get another job. Only issue is, there is a 2-3 month wait because the NHS have lots of checks to do which is time consuming.

i have applied to various employment agencies for temp work but no such luck as of yet.

Worst case scenario is, there is a few weeks of me not working whilst I wait for a start date.

If my boss says bye bye you failed your probation. and there is a gap in my employment, how will this effect our UC?

Would we receive more to cover the loss of my wage?
I have this question on our UC account to an advisor but all I get is a generic answer that doesn’t specifically answer my question.

thanks in advance!

Albus_Alumni

Hey @shaba999 and a warm welcome to thecommunity.

I'm really sorry to hear about your current job, that sounds very unfair on you. Your employer would have to give reasons for not passing probation and unless written into the contract, I doubt turning down overtime would be a good enough reason. I'd definitely seek more specialised work law specialist advice over this. ACAS are very good with this sort of things.

With regard to your UC claim, as the money you bring in goes down, your UC should increase to compensate. But I'd suggest letting UC known about a possible period with no money coming in as that would be a change of circumstances.