UK / 1 in 7 employees in work at the start of the recession have been made redundant

We get the latest official snapshot of the UK jobs market today. Whatever the figures show they can’t disguise the hard time many people are having, exemplified by yesterday’s news that 1,700 jobseekers applied for eight jobs on offer at a branch of Costa Coffee in Nottingham.

The pain felt in recent years is also highlighted in another sad statistical milestone. Around 3.5 million people have been made redundant since the start of 2008 – equivalent to 1 in 7 employees in work at the start of the recession. Of those made redundant in the past five years 63.3% are men and 36.7% women. For both men and women 2009 was the peak year for redundancies, although in terms of share of total redundancies 2011 and 2012 have been the two worst years for women, reflecting public sector job cuts. The share of total redundancies accounted for by the public administration, education and health sectors increased from 8% to 25% between 2009 and 2011, before falling back to 16% in 2012.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor from 

via John Philpott -The Jobs Economist: The curious trend in redundancies.