Record 795,000 job losses planned last year

Employers planned to make a record 795,000 job cuts last year, according to Insolvency Service figures obtained by the BBC via a Freedom of Information request. They showed that in 2020 over 10,000 organisations notified the government about their plans to make 20 or more redundancies.

It is not known if all the proposed cuts – the highest since records began in 2006, and significantly higher than the 530,000 seen in the 2010 recession – were made, with the furlough scheme possibly causing some employers to change their plans. The figure does not include planned job losses in Northern Ireland or those at firms cutting fewer than 20 posts.

The notifications give an earlier indicator of potential redundancies than the final figures, which are released by the Office for National Statistics. The most recent of these, published this week, show that in the three months to November 2020 the redundancy rate reached a record high of 14.2 per thousand. There were 395,000 redundancies across the UK for that period, an increase of 168,000 on the quarter, which showed some slowing compared to the three months to October.

The BBC observed that in recent months the pace of layoffs has slowed despite the new lockdowns. It noted: “Last month employers notified government of plans to cut 23,100 job, which is the lowest monthly figure for 2020, though still a third higher than December 2019.”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55759526

https://www.ons.gov.uk/releases/regionallabourmarketstatisticsintheukjanuary2021