3.3 Million Workers Are Not Confident They Will Keep Their Jobs

According to a new YouGov poll commissioned by the TUC more than 3.3 million workers (13 per cent of the workforce) are not confident they will still be in their job in a year's time.

The report, found that that one in five Welsh workers fear job cuts, while 17% of Scots are worried they may find themselves out of work.

Workers in the east of England are the most optimistic. Only 7 per cent are not confident of being in their job in a year’s time. They are followed by workers in London, Yorkshire and the west Midlands where 12 per cent lack the confidence in being in their jobs in a year.

People who earn between £10,000 and £15,000 feel less secure about keeping their jobs whereas employees earning more than £50,000 seemed more confident. Non- Union members seemed less confident about being in their job in a years time compared to 48 per cent of union members who where optimistic about their employment.

Brendan Barber, general secretary at the TUC, said: "These poll findings show just how many people are getting worried about losing their job in the current economic slowdown. Of course, this does not mean that unemployment will rise by anything like three million, but it does show just how jittery people have become about the economy and their own job."

"The economy will inevitably slow this year and next, given the credit crunch and the impact of higher oil, food and commodity prices. But there is a real danger that if everyone thinks that the downturn will be deeper than it needs to be it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy."

"These findings add to the growing pressure on the Government and economic policy makers to put growth first by doing all they can to restore confidence and boost investment".

Author:
Chris Crawford is the MD of BD Recruitment a specialist recruiter for creative manager jobs, marketing management jobs and business analysis jobs, based in Manchester, UK.

Results of a survey by the CIPD

According to a survey released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), fewer than a third of UK firms are taking on new staff and are expected to increase from 22% to 27% this year.

The number of employers planning job losses increased between the second and third quarters of this year. And the survey of 1,200 UK firms showed a big dip in work prospects compared with 37% of firms taking on staff earlier this year and 58% when the survey began in 2004.

John Philpott, chief economist at the CIPD, said: "Last December I forecast that 2008 would be the UK'S worst year for jobs in a decade. I thought there would be some growth in employment- though only a third of that enjoyed in 2006 and 2007 and not enough to present a rise in unemployment- resulting from a squeeze on recruitment and a limited increase in the number of redundancies. Although this forecast was initially considered pessimistic it now looks relatively optimistic in comparison with the prevailing mood of doom and gloom. My initial view was based on the assumption that interest rates would fall in the second half of 2008. But this has been made difficult by a bigger than anticipated spike in food and fuel prices, making the outlook for jobs worse than originally expected.

Even if we avoid the scale of jobs fallout suffered in previous downturns, the era of the candidate's recruitment market is already over, with people in work becoming increasingly anxious that their P45 might be on its way soon.

With pay pressure still subdued, mounting job insecurity is being compounded by a significant squeeze on workers' real incomes."

According to the recent study, average pay rises are expected to rise by 3.7% in the coming months, in line with recent settlements.

Author:
Chris Crawford is the MD of BD Recruitment a specialist recruiter for creative manager jobs, ppc jobs and c# jobs, based in Manchester, UK.

Re-Think Redundancies

Employers need to retain staff to see out the economic downturn, according to Hull based human resources consultant Rob Coates; The Managing Director of Willerby Hill.

Rob's Comments are supported by a recent study by Deloitte Touche, which concludes that 2008 is the year when there will be more jobs than people to fill them.

Coates claims that staff expertise and skills are needed most during a downturn to see companies through it. He said "Apart from depriving yourself of prized assets that may be vital to weather hard times, you could be delivering competitive advantage to business rivals by letting go high calibre players whose training and development you financed."

"The fact is that, whatever the short to medium-term trends, the UK workforce is aging and shrinking rapidly, with decent staff increasingly aware of their value and far more ambitious. As such, the employment market is more predatory than ever before and businesses should be positioning themselves as top employers in their sector and geographic area so that they attract and retain the best workers."

Yet still it seems that too many companies are taking the knee-jerk reaction of streamlining three vital areas: marketing, training and staff- with the impact of redundancy invariably echoing long after people have departed. As the morale of the surviving staff is then low and they are feeling insecure they then start to seek alternative opportunities – which then in turn leads to more staff losses.

Rob says that even if business is doing well and there doesn't seem to be any plans to make redundancies then communication and transparency are vital in the face of the slowdown. This way everyone knows what's happening around them and they are kept in the picture.

Author:
Chris Crawford is the MD of BD Recruitment, a specialist recruiter for web development jobs, seo jobs and .net developer jobs, based in Manchester, UK.