Over half of UK employees are worried about losing their job, which seems justified as over a fifth of businesses are planning on making redundancies in the three months to July 2020.
This is according to two pieces of research, one from CV-Library which found that 53 per cent of workers are concerned that they may lose their job due to the COVID-19 crisis. Also, the CIPD and the Adecco Group’s separate research, their latest Labour Market Outlook, found that 22 per cent of organisations are planning redundancies in the three months to July 2020.
CV-Library also found, that 77 per cent of staff who are on furlough are worried that their position may not be available to them once the scheme is over.
The sectors with the most nervous employees regarding job safety are sales at 75 per cent, administration at 74 per cent, leisure/tourism at 71 per cent, automotive at 69 per cent and IT at 64 per cent. The industries that have the least worried employees are retail the public sector and medical.
The CIPD found that more than half (52 per cent) of senior HR professionals plan to furlough employees, with those who already have furloughed staff, expect to furlough 60 per cent of their entire workforce. The amount of businesses planning to hire new staff has dropped to 40 per cent, the lowest level the survey has ever shown since it began in 2005.
Lee Biggins, founder and CEO of CV-Library, said:
We’re living in very strange times and this is impacting people at all levels. The government is doing its best to get the economy moving again, but this is going to take time and a lot of professionals are struggling with the uncertainty. Indeed, our data shows that the majority of people who are still working or on furlough are worried about job security and whether their employer is even going to weather the storm.
We know that some industries are going to suffer more than others and we’re expecting to see a real shift over the next 12 months in terms of what people want and need from their job; especially in the absence of pay rises and promotions. Following such an uncertain period, more professionals will want to work for employers that can offer some sense of job security, especially as the pandemic will have a long-lasting impact on the UK economy.
Gerwyn Davies, senior labour market adviser to the CIPD said:
We are pleased that the government has heard consistent calls from the CIPD to extend the job retention scheme and make it more flexible at the same time. The next challenge will be for government to work with employers to design the best way to enable furloughed staff to work part-time for their employer, and gradually reduce reliance on the wage subsidy before the scheme ends in October.
In addition, the Labour Market Outlook also found that 67 per cent of employers aim to review pay over the next 12 months, with 61 per cent increasing home working, 44 per cent freezing recruitment,33 per cent delaying planned pay increases, 29 per cent cutting bonuses and 27 per cent decreasing training budgets.
The CV-Library research is based on the survey results of 1,408 UK workers, and the CIPD and the Adecco Group’s research is based on surveying 2,000 UK staff.
Darius is the editor of HRreview. He has previously worked as a finance reporter for the Daily Express. He studied his journalism masters at Press Association Training and graduated from the University of York with a degree in History.
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