Survey: Unprecedented job losses coming

Monday, 14 February 2011 12:00 AM

By politics.co.uk staff

The next few months will see a record-breaking period of job losses, according to a survey of employers.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) found redundancy intentions were at their highest level since it began conducting the survey in 2004.

Some four out of ten organisations were planning redundancies in the first quarter of the year.

According to government plans, nearly 500,000 people in the public sector will lose their jobs under spending cut plans.

Official strategy would see the private sector step up to take up some of the slack but there are concerns about how thorough government plans for growth actually are.

Some estimates suggest that job losses in the private sector could match that of the public sector.

One-third of NHS employers are planning redundancies, according to the CIPD survey.
Half of central government employers and three-quarters of local government were also planning job losses.

Nearly 2.5 million people are currently unemployed in the UK, according to official data.

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