Firstly, it will be necessary to check whether the employee’s contract of employment is continuing or terminating during the career break.

If the contract is terminating, the employee loses their right to notice and any notice pay. If the contract of employment is continuing, the employee will continue to enjoy their statutory employment rights, one of which is the right to receive notice of their termination.

In relation to notice pay, if an employee is not carrying out any work during their notice period, generally they are not entitled to receive any notice pay for this period, unless their contract specifies otherwise.

However, article 120 and article 121 of the Employment Rights (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 provide certain circumstances when an employee must be paid during their notice period. These are where the employee is:

(a)  Ready and willing to work even if the employer is not actually providing any work;

(b)  Incapable of work due to illness or injury;

(c)   Absent from work wholly or partly because of pregnancy, childbirth, adoption leave, parental leave, shared parental leave or paternity leave; and/or

(d)  Absent from work due to annual leave.

Taking into account the above, it would seem logical that an employee would not be entitled to statutory notice pay during a career break as the employee will not be “ready and willing to work”. However, this will need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.

It is also worth considering that even if one of (a) – (d) above applies, an employer will not need to pay the employee their notice where they are entitled to at least one week more than statutory notice under their contract of employment.