Around one in 12 employers fear they may need to make redundancies in the next six months as the stalling economy fails to ignite growth.
This 8% figure represents a marked slide in confidence from 2012 when just 2% of employers were unsure whether redundancies would be needed, according to a survey of 783 UK firms by Right Management. Recent closures of high-street big brands, such as HMV, Blockbuster, Jessops and Comet have all helped undermine market confidence.
The picture was not all bleak, however, as a healthy 77% of UK employers promised no layoffs for the first six years, higher than the global average of 69%.
But Mark Hodgson, practice leader of talent management at Right Management, said the results implied companies were ignoring redeployment as an alternative to job cuts. “Redeployment is an important way of ensuring that employers can cut costs without losing talent,” he said.
Almost three in ten respondents thought their firms were not effective at redeployment, compared to 22% who believed that this was done well in their organisations.
“Redundancies shouldn’t be the only option, employers need to consider alternatives rather than losing skilled and talented staff who they will want back when the economy picks up again,” said Hodgson.
