28-12-2007
Fresh concerns over UK unemployment levels
The UK's prospects for employment are the weakest since 1997, it has been claimed.
Data released by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) shows that over the course of 2008, an additional 150,000 are expected to join the country's existing pool of jobless individuals. Should this occur, it would be the highest unemployment total since Tony Blair's election victory a decade ago, bringing the jobless total to 1.8 million.
"In the early part of the decade [since Labour came to power], periods of slower growth in private sector employment were masked by relatively rapid growth in public sector jobs," said John Philpott, chief economist at the CIPD, an organisation with a history going back to 1913. "But 2008 will be the first year for a decade when the engine of job creation will be spluttering right across the economy," he added.
In related news, an earlier report - published by the Treasury - has predicted that by the end of 2008, the UK's unemployed will rise to 910,000; an increase of 12 per cent on the current total.