The UK labour market faces a “slow, painful contraction” with firms delaying recruitment of more staff, a key report suggests.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) predicted the jobs market would worsen in the medium term amid global economic “turmoil”.

Its quarterly survey of 1,000 employers found firms’ future hiring plans dwarfed by likely public sector losses.

It found employers adopting a “wait and see” policy towards the economy. This involved reduced recruitment as well as fewer redundancies.

The number of UK employers planning to outsource work overseas or hire migrant workers had also fallen substantially in the last three months, the survey found.

The CIPD said the employment situation could worsen if the eurozone crisis thrust the world back into recession.

CIPD public policy adviser Gerwyn Davies said: “The good news resulting from this lull in business activity is that fewer employers are looking to relocate abroad or make redundancies. The downside is that recruitment intentions are falling, which will make further rises in unemployment therefore seem inevitable given that public sector job losses are outpacing the predictions made by the Office for Budget Responsibility”.

Source: BBC News

Britain’s economic recovery hopes were dealt a blow today as official figures revealed an unexpected increase in the number of unemployed people.

The country’s jobless rate stood at 2.49 million or 7.9% between April and June, the Office for National Statistics said, after the total number of unemployed increased by 38,000.

Economists had expected a fall of around 10,000.

Within the figures, the number of unemployed women hit levels not seen in more than 23 years!

Elsewhere, the number of people claiming jobseeker’s allowance showed the biggest monthly rise in more than two years, increasing by 37,100 to 1.56 million people.

Average earnings increased by 2.6% in the year to June, up by 0.3 percentage points over the previous month, with weekly wages now averaging £462. While this was the largest rise since April last year, the increase in average wages was driven by a bumper period for private sector bonuses and still falls far behind the high rate of inflation, which stood at 4.2% in June and increased to 4.4% in July.

Source: The Independent

David Cameron is to announce a review of every Government policy following last week’s riots, to ensure they are bold enough to fix a “broken society”.

In a speech later, the prime minister will talk of the need for a social fightback to confront a “slow-motion moral collapse” in society.

Meanwhile, Labour leader Ed Miliband will renew calls for a public inquiry into the disorder across England. He is expected to accuse ministers of finger pointing against the police.

Mr Cameron will describe the rioting, looting and arson that spread from London to parts of the East and West Midlands, Merseyside, Bristol, Manchester and Gloucester as “a wake-up call for our country”. “Social problems that have been festering for decades have exploded in our face,” he will say.

“Now, just as people wanted criminals robustly confronted on our street, so they want to see these problems taken on and defeated. “Our security fightback must be matched by a social fightback. We must fight back against the attitudes and assumptions that have brought parts of our society to this shocking state.”

He will include children without fathers, schools without discipline and communities without control in a long list of what he believes has gone wrong in parts of the country. He will go on to pledge that, together with ministers, he will consider whether Government plans and programmes are bold enough to mend a “broken society”.

The review will look at education, welfare, families, parenting, addiction, communities, the “twisting and misrepresenting of human rights that has undermined personal responsibility” and the “obsession with health and safety that has eroded people’s willingness to act according to common sense”.

Souce: BBC News

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UK unemployment fell 88,000 in the three months to April this year to 2.43 million, the biggest drop since the summer of 2000, the latest data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows.

The unemployment rate was 7.7%, down from 7.9% in the previous quarter. But the number of people claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance in May rose by 19,600 to 1.49 million. The rise was the biggest since July 2009, and larger than expected.

The official unemployment figure – which is based on a survey – has been diverging from the claimant count for several months. The claimant count – which has now risen for the third month in a row – has been telling a much more downbeat story about the state of the jobs market most recently.

However, analysts caution that some of the rise in the claimant count may be attributable to changes in benefits rules.

The latest data also revealed that earnings growth slowed in the three months to April, with earnings excluding bonuses up just 2% on a year ago – its slowest rate since last August.

Source: BBC News

The Prince of Wales’s charity for young unemployed people has warned the UK is developing a “youth underclass”.

A survey for the Prince’s Trust of more than 2,300 people aged 16-24 suggested those from deprived backgrounds were three times more likely to say they will “end up on benefits”.

The trust blamed an “aspiration gap” between rich and poor.

Its report comes ahead of figures on Wednesday that may show unemployment among the young hitting one million.

The research revealed what the trust described as the tragedy of young people from poor homes who feel they have no future.

A quarter of those from deprived backgrounds believed they would achieve few or none of their life goals, with a similar proportion expecting to end up on benefits for at least part of their life. Some 23% from this group thought they were destined for a dead-end job compared to 6% of those from affluent families.

More than one in six of those from poorer homes said their family and friends had made fun of them when they talked about finding a good job.

The survey, in conjunction with the Royal Bank of Scotland, also found one in 10 young people from the poorest families did not have their own bed when they were growing up and almost a third had few or no books in their home.

Source: BBC Education News

With the bank holiday on Monday only a few guides were prepared or amended over the last week (30 August to 3 September) and here they are:

• Costume Designer
• Clothing Alteration by Hand
• Clothing Presser
• Clothing Pattern Cutter
• Dry Cleaning Assistant
• Fashion Clothing Designer
• Human Resources Officer
• Knitting Machinist
• Trade Union Official
• TV/Film/Theatre Wardrobe Assistant

The most visited job guides include the ones for a Dog Handler, a Sports Therapist, a PC Games Designer and a Driving Examiner.

Chris, Web Designer at Input Youth

Here is a list of all the job-guides that were added or amended over the course of this last week (23rd to 27th):

• Analytical Chemist
• Animal Trainer
• Biochemist
• Chemist
• Ergonomist
• Forensic Scientist
• Geneticist
• Herbalist
• Horse Groom
• Horse Riding Holiday Centre Manager
• Medical Laboratory Assistant
• Pet Shop Assistant
• Pharmacologist
• Pharmacy Technician
• Racehorse Trainer
• Risk Manager
• Textile Dyeing Technician
• Training Instructor
• Veterinary Nurse
• Zookeeper

The most searched for job-guides at the moment are for a Computer Games Designer a Make-up Artist and an Estate Agent.

Chris, Web Designer at Input Youth

Recovery in the jobs market will “stall” this year as demand for workers in the public sector falls, new research has warned.

According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), a third of employers expect to cut jobs in the next three months.

The public sector employers in particular are planning cuts, with 36% of them looking to lose staff.

The size of the cuts being considered has also increased, the CIPD said.

Across all sectors employers are expecting to make an average of 5.5% of their workforces redundant, the survey of 600 companies suggests, up from the 3.6% average cut being considered three months ago.

Despite the threat of cuts, the CIPD’s net employment index, which measures the number of companies planning to hire against the number planning to lose staff, is still in positive territory at +two, down from +five three months ago. But the difference between the public and private sectors is stark. For the private sector alone, the index shows strong hiring intentions at +19 while in the public sector, the index gives a reading of -35.