Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is to give a goodwill cash payment to trainees who are not retained after qualifying in September.
The City firm has announced that it will only take on 71 per cent of its current September qualifying class. Its retention rate last September was 91 per cent.
Trainee recruitment head Deborah Dalgleish said: “This is obviously very disappointing for us as we’ve consistently had very high retention rates. But this is purely a function of the economic downturn.”
Although the firm could not confirm the amount of money it is going to be handing over, it said the cash would go some way to acting as a financial buoy in the current economic climate.
The move comes as vacancies for training contracts for 2011-12 have dramatically fallen, with almost 40 firms asking trainees from either their 2009 or 2010 intakes to push back their start dates (18 May).
Meanwhile, Allen & Overy has announced that it is likely to retain just 70 per cent of its trainees qualifying in September 2009 and March 2010.
However, the magic circle firm would not confirm if it was going to follow Freshfields’ lead and offer trainees an ex gracia payment.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these reductions aren’t permanent…. diamond shape and all that
The golden goodbye is 700 quid. I believe that ‘s the statutory redundancy payment. Nice to have, but hardly much after the effort we’ve put in.
“Nice to have, but hardly much after the effort we’ve put in” ??? What, like you didn’t also get paid a decent salary in your two years too ? You should have put in a bit more effort, then you wouldn’t be one of the 30% getting the chop….