Although research indicates that women have been disproportionately hit by cuts in public sector temp budgets, females are not being hit harder than males in the UK jobs market overall, the CIPD attests.
An analysis of employment across 74 local authorities and other public authorities undertaken by consultancy, Comensura, revealed an 11.8% drop in the use of temporary labour in the last quarter of 2011 compared with the same period the previous year.
Over the last 24 months, the hiring of temporary labour fell by a total of 20%, with females and workers under 34 being disproportionately affected.
The number of women employed in temporary positions plummeted by 28.3%, largely due to cuts in the number of social care, catering and hospitality, administrative and customer service roles available.
Consequently the proportion of male and female temps working within the public sector has changed over the last two years, from an almost even distribution at the start of 2010 to a 55.5% male and 44.5% female split at the end of 2011.
At the same time, the number of 16-24 year-olds employed on a temporary basis also fell by 13.8% in the final quarter of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010, while those in the 25-34 age range dropped by 19.8%.
Jamie Horton, Comensura’s managing director, said: “While this is concerning for women and young people, the overall results show that the public sector has made a real and concerted effort to reduce the amount spent on temporary labour. ”
Last month, the TUC warned that it expected up to 710,000 public sector job losses by 2017, in a situation that will hit the poorest areas of the UK hardest.
Misleading reports
But John Philpott, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s chief economic adviser, branded reports indicating that women were faring less well in the labour market than men because of the disproportionate impact of public sector job cuts as “misleading”.
He cited official figures from the Office for National Statistics for the last three months of last year, which indicated that the number of men in employment fell by 43,000 or -0.3%, while the number of women in employment rose by 50,000 or +0.4%.
Excluding rises in the number of people who became self-employed, the net drop in the number of female workers was 2,000 or 0% compared with a net fall of 77,000 or 0.6% for male personnel.
The corresponding rise in unemployment was nearly identical for both genders, up 89,000 for men and 90.000 for women. While unemployment rates got slightly worse for females (7.7%, up from 7.1%) than males (9%, up from 8.5%), this situation was due to more women entering the labour market rather than a drop in the number in work.
Moreover, although it was true that a rise in female unemployment (up 32,000) was double that of men (up 16,000) in the last quarter of 2011, the increase was due to more women entering the labour market than were able to find jobs rather than fewer being in work per se.
Philpott said that conditions in the UK labour market were currently tough for both genders and there was a “clear and severe overall shortage of jobs” to be filled.
“However, it is misleading to say that women are being hit harder than men. This is perhaps surprising given the relatively high concentration of women working in the public sector,” he added.
While further large-scale public sector downsizing could have an “adverse impact” on female unemployment levels over the coming months and years, “the current popular narrative suggesting that female employment is already falling and unemployment rising relative to that of men because of the impact of fiscal austerity is not supported by available data”, Philpott said.
