Eight million Britons working part-time to beat the slump

A record 7.84 million Britons are working part-time, figures show today.

People are "taking whatever they can get" as the UK struggles to pull itself out of recession.

The number of three- and four-day-a-week workers has grown as companies try to hold onto staff by cutting their hours.

Firms also prefer the flexibility of hiring part-time employees amid the economic uncertainty. The vast majority of jobs created in the last three months have been part-time — 115,000 of the 184,000 extra roles.

The figures came as Britain was warned to expect slower growth and higher inflation by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King.

Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics, said: "The rise in part-time workers shows that people are taking whatever is available to them. It reflects employers' nervousness about the strength of the economic
recovery because of the belief that it's easier to get rid of part-time workers than full-time."

Businesses insist switching staff to part-time work has meant they have laid off fewer skilled workers than in previous recessions. They hope this will leave them in a better position to meet new orders and expand as the economy picks up.

KPMG, the professional services firm, says it has saved £4 million or the equivalent of 100 jobs by having almost a quarter of its 10,000 UK staff on voluntary sabbaticals or four-day weeks at some point in the past 18 months.

The Treasury stressed that the latest figures showed a rise in full-time workers of 68,000 on the quarter, to reach 21.18 million. This compared with the previous month when the number of full-timers fell by 22,000.

The number of women in full-time jobs fell by 8,000 between May and June, while the number in part-time roles rose by 39,000.

Overall the percentage of employed women aged 16-64 dropped 0.1 per cent to 65.6 per cent on the previous quarter, while the percentage of working men rose by 0.6 per cent to 75.5 per cent. The gender divide will entrench fears that the recession and swingeing public spending cuts will hit women hardest.

This month women's campaign group the Fawcett Society announced it is suing the coalition government for failing to consider the varying impact of the emergency austerity Budget on the sexes.

Today's figures from the Office for National Statistics also show the sixth successive fall in the claimant count for those on Jobseeker's Allowance, down 3,800 to 1.46 million — although this was far lower than expected. And the ONS revised down last month's quarterly fall in the claimant count, from 20,800 to 15,900.

The figures show the unemployment rate was 7.8 per cent in the April to June quarter. Encouraging news on the headline unemployment figure is unlikely to calm fears of a spike in jobless workers when the Government's austerity measures take effect.

The Treasury has estimated there will be 600,000 public sector job cuts over the next five years and experts fear this will far outweigh any rise in employment in the private sector.

Shadow employment minister Jim Knight welcomed the fall in the jobless total, but warned that government cuts now threatened the recovery. "Today's figures continue to show that the action the Labour government took last year worked," he said.