Employers are reducing recruitment levels and employment prospects have fallen since the previous quarter, according to a report on the labour market by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.
The Institute surveyed 1,000 employers across the private and public sectors and found that more employers are expected to cut staff levels than raise them in the next 12 months.
Employment prospects, measured by the difference between those employers who expect to increase and those who expect to decrease staff levels before the end of the year, are down from -1% to -3%.
Gerwyn Davies, public policy adviser at the CIPD, said: “The figures point to a slow, painful contraction in the jobs market.
“Many firms appear to be locked in 'wait and see' mode, with some companies scaling back on all employment decisions against a backdrop of increasing uncertainty as a result of the eurozone crisis and wider global economic turmoil.”
Davies suggested that this means that employers will be less likely to either make redundancies or recruitments.
He continued: “The downside is that recruitment intentions are falling, which will make further rises in unemployment therefore seem inevitable given that public sector job losses are outpacing the predictions made by the Office for Budget Responsibility.
“There is no immediate sign of UK labour market conditions improving in the short or medium term.”
Roy Rowlands writes for Public Sector Executive an essential guide to public sector management offering a wide view public sector news views and opinions