As the Government talks of plans to create an ‘entrepreneurial decade’, a new employment forecast paints a gloomy picture that suggests the private sector will struggle to fill the void left by public sector cuts and feel the impact of the VAT increase.
Does the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development offer an accurate forecast? Or are they ‘less reliable than a dead octopus’ as one Conservative MP suggested.
CIPD predicts that there will be 1.6 million job losses across the public and private sectors by 2016. 725,000 of these jobs will be lost in the public sector whilst a whopping 900,000 will be lost in the private sector.
This is significantly higher than the figures put forward by the Government appointed (though independent; honest) Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). They predict that just over 600,000 public sector jobs will be lost – 100,000 less than the CIPD.
There are going to be substantial job losses whoever you believe; exactly how many is difficult to say, especially when these predictions are being made four or five years in advance. All we can expect is a best guess from those who push themselves forwards as experts.
However, there remains much cautious optimism. The CBI is hopeful that the private sector can compensate for the public sector losses and that flexible workers and part-time workers can continue to help keep total job losses down.
It seems that in the current climate traditional full-time employment could be less stable than traditionally perceived. Perhaps this is something to keep in mind for the record number of jobless graduates who can’t find work. If no-one will employ you, why not employ yourself? Perhaps this really will become the entrepreneurial decade…
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