Redundancy cases ‘will rise despite end of recession’

Posted 12/02/2010

The continued lack of significant growth among UK businesses is likely to lead to further redundancies during 2010, according to an expert.

John Philpott, chief economist at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), told Personnel Today that a lack of investment in business is likely to curtail significant recovery in the near future.

Recent government figures have shown that the UK has now emerged from recession, but Mr Philpott stated that expecting strong economic growth in the first half of the year is unrealistic.

He added: “Even if there is fairly muted growth, we would expect a continuation of job losses, certainly in the first half of the year.”

This verdict was echoed by British Retail Consortium economist Richard Lim, who expressed doubt as to whether UK firms will be able to maintain their levels of labour throughout 2010.

Last month, the CIPD published statistics which showed that 1.3 million people were selected for redundancy during the economic downturn.