Can I take maternity leave in one job, but not another?

There are a few potential scenarios here; two of them will be relevant if both your employers were in place before birth and one applies where an employer is new after the birth.

Existing employers

If you worked for two or more employers during the 15th week before the expected week of childbirth (qualifying week) you can return to work for either of them without affecting her SMP entitlement from the other. There are two situations here:

• If one of the employers was not liable for SMP for whatever reason, you may return to work for that employer without affecting your right to SMP from the other employer.
• If you had two jobs with two separate employers during the qualifying week and qualified for SMP from both of them, if you return to work for one employer, your SMP from that employer stops, but you will continue to be entitled to SMP from the other employer. 

New employer

If you start work with a new employer after the baby is born, your maternity pay entitlement will cease completely.  You will have no right to maternity pay in the week in which you start the new job, or in any subsequent week from any employer.

Work done in “new” employment which commenced before the birth should fall into the category above on “existing employers” though and shouldn’t affect maternity pay entitlement.

A point that may be relevant to this scenario from what I understand of the situation is continuity of service.  You say you are already working for the second employer on a zero hours’ contract, which would mean the position would be as I’ve described under “existing employers” above.  However, I would just suggest a check on continuity of service i.e. that it remains intact from any work done prior to childbirth – I don’t know how long ago you last worked for this employer and whether you remain under contract.  The implication of a break in continuity of service is that your “old employer” could become a “new employer” and your entitlement to maternity pay would cease.  It’s obviously important that you are sure that the employer you plan to do work for post birth will be classed as an existing employer.

Another point is that you can’t start work again until the period of compulsory maternity leave (two weeks for most) is at an end.

*Marie Horner is an experienced senior employment law specialist at ALT Legal in Wetherby. She is also CIPD qualified in HR management.

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