January 7 2008 - The CIPD's outlook for UK employment pronounces 2008 to be the 'worst year for jobs in a decade'.
Report author, John Philpott, Chief Economist at
the CIPD said:
"We forecast a net rise in total UK employment of 75, 000
(0.25%) in the year to December 2008, only a third of the
rise recorded in both 2006 and 2007, resulting from a
combination of much reduced net hiring in the private
sector and net job reductions in the public sector.
This would be the worst year for jobs this decade and
easily the worst since the Labour Government came to
power in 1997.
"In the early part of the decade periods of slower growth
in private sector employment were masked by relatively
rapid growth in public sector jobs. A downward trend
in public sector employment in the past two years has
in turn been more than offset by rising numbers of
private sector jobs. But 2008 will be the first year
for a decade that the engine of job creation will be
spluttering right across the economy.
"With higher fuel costs and food prices set to raise
the cost of living in the first half of the year the
squeeze on real incomes experienced by many workers
in 2007 will continue to bite in 2008. With jobs
also harder to come by this could reinforce the
impact of the economic slowdown, possibly necessitating
bigger cuts in interest rates than currently anticipated
to head off the threat of recession and a worrying
prolongation of the slowdown into 2009.
"For seasoned HR professionals 2008 may evoke
memories of tougher times - those whose experience
doesn't stretch back to before the economic stability
of the past decade will have their first taste of
seriously choppy business water.
"Despite a considerable amount of organisational
restructuring in the past decade large scale
redundancies have been running at historically low
levels. This is likely to change in 2008 with more
HR professionals having to deal with the particularly
tricky task of handling compulsory redundancies. This
will present a challenge to those HR professionals
that have not had to walk the tightrope of laying-off
large numbers of people while ensuring that people
who keep their jobs remain committed and motivated.
"Many HR professionals will be dusting off redundancy
manuals in the coming months to re-discover best
practice on trimming staffing levels. But unlike
previous bouts of large scale job shedding in
the early 1980s and early 1990s, which tended
to fall relatively heavily on older staff,
redundancy practice in 2008 will have to take
care not to fall foul of recently introduced age
discrimination legislation."
Public Sector Jobs
