Warning over post-election public sector job cuts

The jobs cull could lead to a 10 per cent reduction in the 5.8 million public sector workforce, "dwarfing" anything in the party election manifestos, said the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).

Its chief economic adviser Dr John Philpott said it was "misleading" to suggest that the pain of job losses could be eased by a combination of pay cuts or short-time working.

"This strategy has been successful in the private sector during the recession as a means of avoiding redundancies during a cyclical downturn in the economy but is not an effective response where long-term structural change is involved.

"An economy with almost 30 million people in work and in which tens of thousands of jobs are lost and created every year should be able to cope with a period of large scale public sector downsizing without this resulting in higher unemployment.

"However, a favourable outcome depends on a return to health of the wider economy and increased demand for labour from the private sector."

The CIPD said it supported all the parties in their enthusiasm for generating jobs in the low carbon, digital and creative sectors, but added that the number of jobs which could be created was "purely speculative."

Dr Philpott said the Tories and Liberal Democrats should acknowledge the underlying strength of the labour market, but added that Labour should accept that its record on jobs was "blemished" by a persistently high rate of economic inactivity, with "far too many" young people not in education, employment or training.

"The election manifestos understandably focus in particular on the problem of high youth unemployment. It remains far from clear, however, whether any of the policies on offer will genuinely boost the long-term employment and earnings prospects of young jobless people as opposed to simply providing short-term palliative relief while jobs remain scarce."

The report was published ahead of new unemployment figures on Wednesday.

A union leader will today also warn political parties against making cuts in the NHS and pledged to build alliances to fight attacks on the service.

Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, will tell the union's health workers' conference in Brighton that the NHS was not a "soft touch" for cuts.

He will tell hundreds of health workers, including nurses, paramedics, therapists, hospital porters, cleaners and midwives, that public service workers would stand "shoulder to shoulder" to protect jobs and services.