Research: Labour Market Outlook – Autumn 2020
Key findings
- The net employment intentions figure for Q4 2020 has risen to –1 from –8 in the summer 2020 report. This is due to both a modest fall in redundancy intentions, down from 33% to 30%, and a slight uptick in recruitment intentions.
- Redundancy intentions have decreased slightly over the quarter. Three in ten (30%) organisations expect to make some redundancies in the next three months (representing on average 16% of the workforce), down three points from the summer quarter. This is still well above the historical average for the Labour Market Outlook redundancy measure.
- Key tactics used by employers to stave off or minimise redundancies to date include temporary lay-offs/furlough staff (41%), redeployment (37%), recruitment freezes (32%), freezing or delaying wage increases (29%), cutting bonuses (29%) and terminating temporary worker or agency worker contracts (27%).
- Median basic pay increase expectations for the next 12 months are 1%, unchanged from the summer quarter. Pay expectations in the private sector are 0%, compared with 0.8% three months earlier.
- More than half of private sector firms expect to freeze pay over the next 12 months. By comparison, pay expectations are higher in both the public sector (2%) and voluntary sector (1.7%).
- Just over seven in ten employers intend to review wages in the next 12 months. Three in ten (27%) intend to postpone their pay decision this year, broadly consistent with 29% in the spring quarter.
