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News Release from: Cranfield School of Management
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 20 April 2007
Public sector employment levels to fall
Findings from the Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI), produced by Cranfield School of Management, reveal that many public sector organisations expect their employment levels to fall.
Employment levels in the public sector are expected to fall over the next six months, compared to continued rises in the private sector This is the first fall in public sector employment levels predicted since the Gershon Review in 2004 which recommended savings of GBP21 billion over four years, including the loss of 80,000 civil service jobs
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 7 May 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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The latest findings from the Recruitment Confidence Index (RCI), produced by Cranfield School of Management, reveal that 89 percent of public sector organisations expect their employment levels to either fall or remain at the same level over the next six months, compared to only 55 percent of private sector organisations.
Similarly, 85 percent of public sector organisations expect their recruitment activity to drop or stay the same compared to 60 percent of private sector organisations.
The findings suggest that the number of employees in the public sector may actually be about to fall for the first time since the Gershon Review.
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Professor Shaun Tyson, Emeritus Professor of Human Resource Management at Cranfield School of Management, said: "The findings reflect the more stringent environment faced by the public sector, where the many years of expansion have come to an end.
The focus now is upon leveraging value for money rather than extensive recruitment".
Emma Parry, Research Fellow at Cranfield School of Management said: "The recruitment marketplace has appeared positive for some time now with the private sector, and particularly service sector organisations, recruiting workers.
This quarter we can see a stark contrast between the still buoyant picture in the private sector and the apparent cutbacks in the public sector which may be the first indicator that the implications of the 2004 Review are filtering through.
A drop in public sector recruitment activity and employment levels now being predicted is an inevitable consequence of such policies".
The research showed that recruitment activity overall remains relatively buoyant, with over a third (36 percent) of organisations expecting activity to increase over the next six months.
Similarly, 40 percent of organisations overall expect employment levels to rise.
This confidence is fuelled by positive predictions from the private sector.
The latest RCI findings also show that: Most respondents (72 percent) feel optimistic about business confidence and around half expect the demand for their main product of services to rise over the next six months.
80 percent respondents are expecting to experience recruitment difficulties.
Recruitment difficulties were expected to be significantly higher in the private sector (83 percent organisations) than in the public sector (69 percent) Recruitment difficulties were expected to be highest when recruiting engineering (61 percent organisations) and IT skills (50 percent).
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