The number of employment tribunal claims has risen significantly in 2008 / 09, which has been attributed to the current recession.

The claims set out below are taken from the Employment Tribunals Annual Report and shows a rapid increase in the number of claims made in 2008 / 09 compared to 2007 / 08.

These figures are extracts only and for full details of claims made to the Employment Tribunals in 2008/09, go to the Employment Tribunals Web Site.

Employment Tribunal Statistics	2007/08	2008/09
Unfair Dismissal	40,941	52,711
Breach of Contract	25,054	32,829
Redundancy Pay	7,313	10,839
Redundancy – failure to Inform and consult	4,480	11,371

Tribunal claims can be costly to employers. Awards made in the Tribunal can be significant; below is an average of the awards given in claims made in 2008/09.

Average awards of successful claims

Unfair Dismissal	7,959
Race discrimination	32,115
Sex discrimination	11,205
Disability discrimination	27,235
Religious discrimination	10,616
Sexual orientation	23,668
Age discrimination	8,869