A new survey by Glassdoor, a jobs and careers community, reveals that more than one in four (29 percent) UK employees fear losing their job in the next six months, an increase of eight percentage points from the Q114 survey. The Q2 2014 UK Employment Confidence Survey, conducted online by Harris Interactive among UK employees, monitors four key indicators of employee confidence: job security, salary expectations, job market optimism/re-hire probability and business outlook optimism.
While 29 percent of employees are concerned that they themselves may be made redundant, even more, 36 percent, are also concerned about co-workers being made redundant. This figure has also risen since last quarter, by one percentage point. Employees in London are most concerned about losing their jobs, as half (49 percent) of employees are worried that they could be laid off, while more than half (57 percent) are concerned about co-workers being made redundant. Forty six percent of younger employees (those aged 16-24) are concerned about being made redundant themselves, the highest of any age group.
“The main reason that people are worrying about their jobs more may well be the increasing amount of restructuring that employees are seeing in the workplace. Regional job losses are still being widely reported and this is prompting employees to feel less secure,” said Jon Ingham, Glassdoor career and workplace expert. “Employers will benefit from communicating openly about the specific circumstances of their own businesses, involving employees where there are issues and problems, and communicating confidently where there are already positive changes underway or there are signs of new opportunities for the future.”
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Only three in ten (29 percent) employees (employed full or part-time or self-employed) report optimism that they could find a job matched to their experience and current compensation levels in the next six months if they were to lose their current job, down one percentage point since last quarter. Full-time employees (32 percent) are more confident than part-time employees (20 percent) when it comes to finding a new job within six months.
As for how UK employees feel about how their company’s business will perform in the next six months, most employees appear to be cautiously optimistic. More than half of employees (58 percent) believe their company’s business outlook will stay the same, up two percentage points since last quarter. One in three (32 percent) employees (including those self-employed) believe their company’s business outlook will improve in the next six months, also down two percentage points. Only one in ten (10 percent) believe it will get worse.
When it comes to how optimistic UK employees are surrounding a pay rise or cost-of-living increase, nearly two in five (37 percent) employees expect to receive one in the next 12 months, an increase of three percentage points. When comparing by type of employee, nearly one in four (23 percent) part-time employees expect a pay rise compared to two in five (41 percent) full time employees. Fifty seven percent of employees in the North East expect to receive a pay rise compared to just 26 percent in the South West, those being the most and least optimistic regions, respectively.
