Experts predict bleak outlook for UK jobs in 2011

Government hopes that the private sector will lead an economic recovery were dashed by a leading human resources body today.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) gave a bleak forecast for the economy next year, only expecting a "sustained recovery" in 2013.
"The CIPD forecasts that the coming year will be worse for jobs than 2010, with a small rise in unemployment and a further period of below-inflation pay rises the best that can realistically be expected," said the CIPD report.

In a revealing report about the attitudes of working people in the public and private sector, the institute found that confidence about job prospects remained "low" among workers.
Just 10 per cent of all workers surveyed believed it would be easy or very easy to get a new job if they lost their current job within the next year and only 28 per cent were very or fairly optimistic about their ability to change jobs.

CIPD chief economic adviser John Philpott said: "2011 will be a fingers-crossed year for the economy and jobs.
"Labour market conditions will remain weak in 2012 before starting to recover more robustly in 2013."
The CIPD predicts that the number of people in work will fall by 200,000 in 2011 - 120,000 in the public sector and 80,000 in the private sector.

Unemployment is forecast to rise to 9 per cent, or 2.7 million, while average earnings are expected to increase by a below-inflation 2 per cent.

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said: "We are paying the price for decades of speculation. "Capital must be directed into productive industry including transport, house building and sustainable energy. "The free market, if it ever existed, is well and truly dead and government of every colour will have no option but to embrace planning and increasing public control of the economy."

Left Economics Advisory Project co-ordinator Andrew Fisher said: "The CIPD report spells out the inevitable consequences of the coalition government's policies.
"Jobs and wages have been sacrificed to maintain corporate profitability. The only new jobs are temporary and insecure. This squeeze is unsustainable. The cuts will prove self-defeating."