More jobless gloom forecast for firms

Huddersfield Daily Examiner (Huddersfield, England), Dec 29, 2008

Byline: By HENRYK ZIENTEK Business Reporter

EMPLOYMENT prospects are expected to hit a 20-year low during 2009, a gloomy survey said today.

The annual Barometer Report by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development predicted job losses totalling 600,000 next year.

It also said that more than half of 2,600 employees polled expect their pay to improve only marginally or not at all.

The survey showed that 28% of employees believe that they will not receive a pay increase in 2009 while 26% predict they will get a pay rise lower than the one they got in 2008.

Some 23% expect a wages freeze while 2% think they will get a pay cut.

Institute spokesman Charles Cotton said: "With job cuts seemingly lurking around every corner and trading conditions tight, employees are realistic about their pay prospects for the year ahead.

"Against this backdrop employers will need to work hard to find new ways to motivate their employees to perform.

"Targeting pay increases to reward superior performance, making intelligent use of non-financial rewards and targeted investment in training and development are all ways of making limited budgets go further in efforts to weather the storm."

Survey author and institute chief economist John Philpott said: "This time last year - in the face of some scepticism - the institute warned that 2008 would be the UK's worst year for jobs in a decade. It was.

"But in retrospect it will be seen as merely the slow-motion prelude to what will be the worst year for jobs in almost two decades."

Mr Philpott added: "The Barometer Forecast is that the UK economy will shed at least 600,000 jobs in 2009.

"Overall, the 18-month period from the start of the recession in mid-2008 until the end of 2009 will witness the loss of around 750,000 jobs, equivalent to the total net rise in employment in the preceding three years.

"Assuming the economy bottoms out in the second half of 2009 job losses are likely to continue into 2010, in all probability taking the final toll of lost jobs to about 1m."

Mr Philpott forecast that the number of redundancies would jump sharply in the early months of next year once firms took stock of the economic outlook.

The period between new year and Easter was likely to be the worst for redundancies since 1991.