Employees still feeling impact of downturn

A survey of 2,000 employees by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development suggests that any continuing move out of recession has yet to make itself felt in the workplace.

According to the CIPD's latest quarterly Employee Outlook survey, employees are almost three times (29%) more likely to report that their standard of living has worsened over the past three months than to say that it has improved (10%) - a broader gap than in the previous quarter.

Nearly a fifth (18%) of employees think it's likely that they could lose their job, while almost two-thirds (66%) foresee difficulties in finding new employment if they were to be made redundant.  In addition, the CIPD's job satisfaction index (i.e. the percentage of dissatisfied minus satisfied employees) has fallen to a record low of 35%.

The picture is even gloomier in the public sector, where 40% of respondents are expecting their employer to make redundancies, 51% have had their pay frozen and 84% simply don't trust their senior leaders.

CIPD senior public policy adviser Ben Willmott notes that, although the latest GDP figures suggests that the UK economy is continuing to move away from recession, "the reality for many in the workplace is that they still feel like they are in the grip of a severe economic downturn."