By Elliot Wright, 25th January 2010
The impact of the recession has been much deeper than official
government figures suggested, a report has revealed.
Research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
(CIPD) shows that 1.3m workers have lost their jobs during the
recession - a stark contrast to the 600,000 quoted by the
Office for National Statistics.
The government figure only represented the net loss of jobs -
i.e. jobs that do not exist anymore - and did not account for an
extra 700,000 people who had gone through the trauma of being made
redundant but later found work elsewhere.
However, many of those who managed to find work often took large
pay cuts or were forced to work reduced hours.
The study showed that there were 6.2m fresh claims for
jobseeker's allowance between April 2008 and November 2009 - 7.5
times the rise in the unemployment claimant count during the
recession, highlighting the degree to which many people were
struggling to find permanent jobs.
Dr John Philpott, the CIPD's chief economic adviser said:
"Although the scale of job loss in the recession is much less than
originally feared and much less than might have been expected given
the scale of the contraction in the economy, it is evident that the
direct experience of redundancy, repeat spells of unemployment and
pay penalties has nonetheless been widespread.
"Given that redundancy also affects the families, friends and
former colleagues of those made redundant the full experience of
the jobs recession has been wider still.
"This is likely to have a much greater impact on perceptions of
job security and consumer confidence during the recovery than the
simple unemployment situation is better than feared story of the
moment would suggest."
Government employment spokesman Jim Knight said: "What the
figures in the report highlight is that thousands have found work
very quickly through Jobcentres, with 70% of people leaving
unemployment benefit within six months..
"As a result there are 450,000 fewer people currently unemployed
than predicted in the last budget."
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