Historic low forecast for public sector workforce

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) said the cuts will mean the public sector will account for one in six jobs in the economy, down from a peak of one in five before the General Election.

John Philpott, the CIPD’s chief economic adviser, said projections from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) showed the number of people employed in central and local government will have fallen by around 700,000 during the course of the current Parliament (2010-2015).

The number will fall by 880,000 by the time Chancellor George Osborne hopes to have closed the structural fiscal deficit in 2017, said Mr Philpott, adding: “This will easily wipe out the net rise in public sector employment under the Labour government between 1999 and 2009 and take the public sector workforce to a record low.

“While the OBR expects growth in private sector jobs to more than make up for the public sector jobs cull, public sector downsizing on such a scale nonetheless represents a tectonic shift in the underlying structure of the labour market with broader implications for what people can expect to experience in terms of pay, conditions of work, management practice and workplace cultures.”

The report follows an analysis of official figures by the GMB union which showed a 381,000 reduction in the number of public sector workers since the General Election.

The GMB said private firms were not able to make up for the losses and the cuts were damaging the UK’s chances of recovery.

The data showed that public sector employment fell from more than 6.3 million before the General Election to less than six million at the end of last year.

GMB general secretary Paul Kenny said: “These figures go a long way to explain why unemployment has increased in the UK since the general election.

“The Government has been putting people out of work and the private sector cannot make up for the jobs carnage.”