Exclusive: Yorkshire facing 50,000 job losses as cuts bite

Britain's new Government is already working on plans to slash public spending and cut the nation's shocking budget deficit – and a Yorkshire Post study suggests job losses in the region could be the equivalent of an entire town the size of Keighley or Scarborough.

Yorkshire is particularly vulnerable to the forthcoming cuts because of the high proportion of public sector employment in the region. Between a quarter and a third of all workers in Yorkshire are employed in public administration roles, including police, teachers and healthcare workers, compared with less than a fifth in the South-East and London.

This disparity, repeated across much of the north of England, has led to fears the north-south divide will widen over the coming years as the axe falls.

The Government has yet to announce how the savings will be found but best estimates suggest up to half a million public sector jobs could go across the country, equating to around 50,000 posts in Yorkshire.

Worst-case scenarios go further, one think-tank suggesting one in six public sector jobs could be cut – putting job losses in Yorkshire at over 100,000.

Analysts believe the cuts will be felt most keenly in South Yorkshire, where towns and cities such as Barnsley, Doncaster and Sheffield have a heavy reliance on the public sector.

In Barnsley more than one in three workers is employed in the public sector, a recent report describing the town as "highly vulnerable" to cuts from central Government.

Barnsley Council leader Steve Houghton said: "We're obviously very worried. Reductions in spending will hit the town hard – we have something like 35 per cent of people working in the public sector.

"A lot of the northern towns are old industrial places still trying to recover, not from this recession but from the ones before. That's why they have become reliant on the public sector."

Leeds is another place that could suffer badly – its total of 107,000 public administration workers is the third highest in the UK. Areas of high unemployment such as Hull and Grimsby are also expected to struggle.

The knock-on effects for much of the private sector are also likely to be grim, many of the region's firms relying on state contracts and public funds for their own livelihood. The reduced spending capacity of tens of thousands of people finding themselves out of work will also impact heavily on sectors such as leisure and retail. Estimates suggest the public sector is responsible for almost a quarter of the region's entire economy.

Figures also show women will be hit hard, as nearly three-quarters of public sector employees are female. More than 80 per cent of jobs created for women over the past decade were in public administration roles.

Further job creation figures show the stark contrast between the north and the south of the country.

Around two-thirds of all new jobs created in the north of England over the past decade were in the state sector or reliant on state funding, whereas in the south the figure was just 44 per cent.

A spokesman for public sector union Unison, Alan Hughes, said: "Our concern is that in virtually every part of this region, the main employer is the local authority. If these cuts are too fast and too deep, the threat is we go back into recession."

Yorkshire's public army

n Business support services: 16,322

n Local and national government employees: 70,230

n Community services:43,336

n Social security: 6,136

n Pre-school education: 6,128

n Primary education: 100,516

n Secondary education: 67,851

n Higher education: 43,064

n Other education: 18,043

n Hospital workers: 119,458

n Health and dental practices: 22,117

n Other health activities: 27,805

n Residential nursing care: 13,957

n Residential care for people with learning disabilities, mental health and substance abuse: 7,431

n Residential care for the elderly and disabled: 16,327

n Other residential care activities: 16,733

n Social work activities: 58,330

Approximate total: 650,000