Councils bearing brunt of public sector job losses

Local government has borne the brunt of 143,000 public sector job losses over the past year, suffering a 27,000 headcount reduction in the first quarter of 2011 alone, official figures show.

Overall public sector job losses are close to half the 330,000 posts independent Treasury forecaster the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) predicted would be cut over the spending review period last November.

Public sector employment estimates issued today by UK National Statistics reveal last year councils suffered workforce reductions of 3%, equivalent to 88,000 full time posts. In comparison central government is struggling to meet spending review commitments to rationalise its headcount, losing a mere 37,000 jobs, representing 1.3% of total staff.

Temporary workers employed to conduct the 2011 census contributed to an actual rise in civil service employment by 7,000 to 513,000. But when removed from estimates the central government payroll is seen to fall to 499,000.

Echoing the latest employment statistics, findings from the fifteenth annual CIPD and Hays resourcing and talent survey show 32% of public sector organisations will be implementing a recruitment freeze, compared to one in five organisations overall.

Two-thirds of public sector orgainsations will reduce the number of new recruits hired, compared with 29% of private organisastions. Similarly, twice as many public sector bodies (43%) will recruit fewer staff as a consequence of the abolition of the default retirement age, as against 23% overall.

Cancelling out a combined 23,000 fall in the government workforce, private sector employment increased by 104,000 to over 23 million in the first quarter of the year, news that will buoy chancellor George Osborne ahead of his annual Mansion House speech tonight.

But commenting on the figures, Dave Prentis, general secretary of UNISON, said: ‘The small fall in the jobless total will be no comfort to the hundreds of thousands of public sector workers with redundancy notices hanging over their heads.

'The figures show that government's cuts have led to another 24,000 public sector workers losing their jobs.Economic inactivity has gone up and the private sector is still weak.It is no position to create the number of jobs needed to stop thousands more public sector workers joining the dole queues.'

Statistical bulletin by Office for National Statistics.