New research by the Office of National Statistics found that 7.84 million people in the U.K are working part-time in an attempt to resolve financial issues caused by the credit crunch.
 As Great Britain struggles to claw its way out of the recession, and employment vacancies are few and far between, millions of people are taking whatever they can get.
Many workers have also been forced to work part-time hours in a previously full-time position, as companies are struggling to stay financially afloat at this difficult time. Millions of businesses have had to cut employees’ hours in a bid to keep their companies from entering liquidation.
Within the first quarter of 2010, 184,000 jobs were created. A staggering 115,000 of these were part-time vacancies. This shows that firms are opting to hire part-time staff during these times of economic uncertainty. There are several reasons for this, the most prevalent being that part-time workers offer flexibility within their role and their hours can adapt depending on when the busiest business times are. Another common reason is these companies can still keep their staff, and keep their business trading, but have less expenditure.
Bank Of England Governor Mervyn King recently warned Britons that they can expect to see a rise in inflation, but a decline in the rate of economic growth in the near future.
Vicky Redwood, chief UK economist at Capital Economics said: “The rise in part-time workers shows that people are taking whatever is available to them. It reflects employers’ nervousness about the strength of the economic
recovery because of the belief that it’s easier to get rid of part-time workers than full-time.”
This will no doubt bring back fear to part-time workers that their jobs may be in jeopardy. Also, with more and more applicants applying for each available position, the chance of securing a job becomes slimmer and slimmer. People are hoping that the economy will begin to recover soon to avoid unemployment rates hitting record highs.
Although people are worrying, businesses claim that by reducing employees’ hours, they have avoided making mass redundancies, thus leaving their employees in a better position to handle the tough times until the economy recovers.
KPMG, a professional services firm, says it has saved £4 million or the equivalent of 100 jobs by having almost 25% of its workforce on voluntary 3 and 4-day-working-weeks throughout the past 2 years.
According to figures from the Treasury, the number of women in full-time employment plummeted by 8,000, but the number of females in part-time roles increased by 39,000.
Currently, the amount of employed women aged 16-64 stands at 65.6% while the number of employed men within the same age range stands at 75.5%. This proves that women are the hardest hit by the economic downturn and will likely feel the pinch more than U.K. men.
The Treasury has estimated there will be 600,000 job cuts within the public sector over the next 5 years, and experts have warned that this will far outweigh any rise in job opportunities from the private sector. This revelation is extremely discouraging to anyone working within the public sector and will surely cause more angst within the workforce.
Overall, it is encouraging to know that a positive thing has arisen from the negativity surrounding the millions of redundancies over recent years. At least businesses are attempting to hold onto their employees, even if they are on reduced hours and reduced pay. Slowly but surely, the economy looks set to recover. Even if this is not going to happen for some time, it is reassuring to know that more employment opportunities are arising from the recession.
Written by Katie Simpson ©