If your employer announces redundancies, here is what the state records about it and what it does not

Redundancies are the one moment where a job loss becomes an official event. Here is what happens to the record.

What your employer has to tell the state

An employer proposing to make twenty or more people redundant at one establishment within ninety days must notify the Insolvency Service on a form called HR1, and must consult employee representatives. The form has to arrive at least thirty days before the first dismissal for twenty to ninety-nine redundancies, and at least forty-five days for a hundred or more, and before any individual notices go out. Not sending it is a criminal offence.

You are entitled to see it. The employer must send a copy of that notification to the employee representatives.

Since the form went digital on 1 December 2025 it no longer asks for a breakdown by occupation. The count is recorded. What the jobs were is not.

What that means for you

If you are being consulted, the employer's reason is stated to you and your representatives, not to a statistician. Ask for it in writing, and ask what evidence sits behind it. If new software or a system is part of the reason, ask whether it is being introduced before or after the consultation, because the answer changes what your representatives can ask for.

Keep your own record: the date you were told, the reason given, and the job title as written in your contract. In five years that may be the only place the occupation is written down at all.

If you are a representative

You can ask for the information the employer used, and the number and description of the employees affected is part of what the law requires them to give you. Ask for occupations, not just headcount. Nobody else is now collecting it.

If you run the business

You still have to file HR1 and consult. Nothing here suggests otherwise. But if a system is part of the reason, writing it down plainly in your own records costs you nothing now and will be worth a great deal to whoever tries to understand this period later.

One thing to watch next week

The government's consultation on workplace monitoring closes at 11:59pm on 30 September, and it is open to anyone. We published how to answer it on 22 September.

The Quernal provides general information, not legal advice. For your own situation, Acas and your union are the places to go.