Latest news: A fifth fear the sack

One in five UK workers fear for their job and almost half have had to deal with a pay freeze, according to new figures released in February. 11/02/2011

Those working in the public sector are even more scared, with one in three worried about job security, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said.

The quarterly Employee Outlook Survey illustrated how many employees struggled to maintain their standard of living, as inflation ‘continues to erode the real value of wages’.

Almost a third of employees surveyed claimed that their standard of living had decreased over the last three months, compared to just 10% who said it had got better.

Over half of the 2,000 workers had had their pay frozen or cut in the same period.  

‘With employees feeling the pinch financially, concerned over their job security and fewer opportunities to move up or on, employers need to deliver consistently high quality leadership,’ said Ben Wilmott, CIPD senior public policy adviser.

‘If organisations don’t invest in developing high performing managers, they may find better managed competitors racing past them on the road to recovery.

‘Employers need to find cost-effective ways of equipping their line managers with the people management skills to support employee engagement and wellbeing.’

The report is grim news for students, coming just weeks after the Office for National Statistics released a report showing that 20% of recent graduates are unemployed – the highest proportion for more than a decade.

It also means that the number of unemployed graduates has almost doubled since the start of the recession in 2008.

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