“The survey data also suggests that the redundancy activity will be broad-based, with IT, manufacturing and construction sectors the most likely to be affected,” CIPD’s senior labour market analyst Gerwyn Davies said in the report.
It comes as analysts fear a major jobs decline in the autumn involving furloughed staff, as the Government’s job retention scheme winds down towards its October termination.
The latest CIPD-Adecco survey also showed employers had adopted a number of responses to cope with the pandemic.
More than four in 10 (42%) had applied recruitment freezes, the sharpest examples coming in the hospitality sector (65%), business services (54%) and in IT (52%).
In seeking to preserve jobs, 18% of employers instituted pay cuts, 26% bonus cuts, and 33% froze or delayed pay rises. Pay cuts were most prevalent in construction (44%), business services (30%) and hospitality (29%).
Other responses have included introducing new or more flexible working arrangements (38%), cuts to training budgets (23%), temporary lay-offs through the Job Retention Scheme (54%), and the termination of agency or temporary worker contracts (32%).
Additionally, 69% of employers extended home-working significantly across their workforce, especially in the fields of public administration and other public sector areas (85%), business services (84%), information and communication (81%), and education (71%).
As expected, fewer employers in hospitality (46%) and transport and storage (53%) were able to increase home-working.
The figures come with the UK’s economy expected to officially enter recession this week, having fallen by a record 20% in the spring quarter.
