British workers 'fear recession'

Nearly one in five UK workers fear redundancy

A third of British employees fear the UK is heading for recession, according to a survey.

The study of attitudes to redundancy among 1,000 UK workers, by human resources consultancy Chiumento, paints a grim picture of employee confidence.

A sizeable minority - 40% - of workers surveyed said they believed unemployment would rise during the next year.

And nearly one-fifth of employees said they felt personally at risk of redundancy.

Almost a quarter of those surveyed reported their employer was already cutting staff, and 29% believed the sector they worked in was in decline.

Senior and middle managers were the most fearful of the chop - 20% said they were worried about their job prospects, while only 14% of junior employees said they felt at risk.

The possibility of a slowdown in the UK economy prompted 45% of workers to claim that they were worried as to how they would make ends meet next year.

Stigma

However, on the bright side, it seems redundancy does not carry with it the stigma of old.

Only 2% of employees interviewed agreed with the statement that redundancy was humiliating.

Commenting on the survey, Paul Meneely, human resource manager of Powergen, said: "We have a new generation of managers - many of whom joined the working world in the late 70s and early 80s recession - for whom the stigma surrounding redundancy has all but disappeared."