How to look on the bright side of redundancy

The threat of redundancy is a growing concern for many of us. Merryn Somerset-Webb explains what to expect, what to do with your redundancy pay – and the upside of being let go in a financial crisis.

Think you might be about to lose your job? You could be right. The UK's companies aren't exactly in a hiring mood. A survey out this month from Lloyds shows that the balance of firms expecting anything good to happen - better activity of some kind, rising sales, rising orders, rising profits has plummeted since the last survey six months ago. At the same time, the number of the unemployed has slowly begun to rise as the construction, real estate and financial sectors have dumped staff by the thousands and opportunities elsewhere have evaporated.

Why many people could soon find themselves without jobs

Subscribe to MoneyWeek

Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE

Get 6 issues free
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/mw70aro6gl1676370748.jpg

Sign up to Money Morning

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter

Sign up
Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.