The UK is facing more redundancies as substantial cuts are expected in the public sector, despite the country emerging from recession. These are the main findings from the latest CIPD/KPMG quarterly Labour Market Outlook survey of over 700 employers.
Almost one in three public sector employers plan to shed jobs this quarter as the CIPD's latest quarterly survey found that the jobs outlook had worsened despite the UK emerging from recession.
Redundancies look set to almost double this quarter, compared with the final quarter of 2009, among those employers that plan to make redundancies. Employers from all sectors plan to cut 6.2% of their workforce in the first quarter of 2010, compared with 3.8% in the previous quarter. Almost a third of public sector employers plan to reduce headcount in the first quarter of 2010.
Despite signs that some private sector employers are emerging from the recession with intentions to increase staff levels, the overall net balance between the percentage of employers expecting to recruit and those expecting to cut staff across all sectors of the economy is still negative (-5%). This represents a fall from -3% in the previous quarter.
The findings show that this negative growth is almost wholly down to a bleak quarter ahead for the public sector, which recorded -31%, down from -13% in the previous quarter.
"Despite the jobs market proving resilient in recent months, this represents a mere pause for breath with the number of redundancies easing in the private sector and spending cuts yet to be felt by large swathes of the public sector," said John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the CIPD
"Unfortunately, there are more testing rounds ahead. Alongside the spectre of deep public spending cuts, the private sector will be dealing with ongoing concerns about productivity, wage costs and inflation."
