Spending cuts to push unemployment to three million in Britain

LONDON - The British government’s spending cuts are projected to result in 500,000 public sector job cuts between now and 2015 and the unemployment level expected to touch the three million mark.

The employment group, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), has warned in a report that there was little prospect of real wage growth until at least 2015, and public sector workers faced pay cuts.

The chancellor is expected to lay out sweeping cuts to try to trim the 156 billion pound deficit in his budget 22 June.

The CIPD had earlier suggested that the jobless total would reach 2.65 million this year.

But chief economic adviser John Philpott said he had now revised up his forecast, saying unemployment would climb to 2.95 million in the second half of 2012, and remain close to that level until 2015.

About 500,000 public sector jobs would go in that period, Philpott predicted. Unemployment is currently 2.51 million, according to the latest official figures.

Philpott asked the people to be ready to bear the brunt of the spending cuts.

“Given what we know historically about the way in which the social burden of unemployment and stagnant average income growth is shared across individuals and communities, the prospects for those already suffering the most disadvantage seem particularly bleak.”

Already, the effects of job cuts are being felt across the British public sector. A recent survey showed that one in four people is having to work without breaks, affecting health and safety practices at work places.

More than half of the 3,000 people polled by the Chartered Society of Physiotherapists said they went to work when feeling unwell or stressed. Staff shortages were cited as a cause of stress and why breaks were skipped.

While a quarter of those polled took no lunch break at all, a third worked through most of theirs. Half of those who did so said it was because they had too much work to do, and a third because there was not enough staff to do the work required.

The CIPD said: “These findings should ring alarm bells for employers. A certain level of pressure at work is of course desirable. However, when the pressure people face exceeds their ability to cope - in other words stress - it is likely to lead to time off work and is linked to conditions such as depression, anxiety and heart disease.”