Public sector workforce ‘heading for record low’

One in seven jobs to be lost in austerity drive, analysis shows

The public sector workforce is set to fall to a record low, with 880,000 public jobs likely to be axed overall in the government’s austerity drive, according to a CIPD analysis of official figures.

Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) projections released alongside last week’s budget revealed that one in seven jobs in public services will eventually be culled, said the institute’s chief economic adviser John Philpott.

“The OBR projections indicate that the number of people employed in central and local government will have fallen by around 700,000 during the course of the current Parliament (2010-2015) and by 880,000 by the time the Chancellor hopes to have closed the structural fiscal deficit in 2017,” said Philpott. “This will easily wipe out the net rise in public sector employment under the Labour government between 1999 and 2009 and take the public sector workforce to a record low.

“Overall more than 1 in 7 public sector jobs will be lost as a result of the squeeze on public spending, with the public sector eventually accounting for only 1 in 6 jobs in the UK economy, down from a peak of 1 in 5 prior to the recession,” he continued. “While the OBR expects growth in private sector jobs to more than make up for the public sector jobs cull, public sector downsizing on such a scale nonetheless represents a tectonic shift in the underlying structure of the labour market with broader implications for what people can expect to experience in terms of pay, conditions of work, management practice and workplace cultures.” 

chandramala
pgdm 2nd sem.