Unemployment 'to peak at 2.8m'

Date: 29th December 2009

Unemployment will reach a peak of 2.8 million over the next year, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has predicted.

The organisation, which represents the interests of people working in the human resources sector, said that there had been fewer redundancies than expected in 2009.

Job losses are believed to have fallen in the third quarter of this year, a trend that it likely to continue in the early months of 2010.

However, a spike in staff reductions in the New Year is expected to push up unemployment figures in the summer, the CIPD said.

Dr John Philpott, chief economic adviser to the organisation, said: "Many private sector employees have experienced pay freezes or pay cuts.

"A slower than expected recovery or stronger earnings growth would threaten to raise peak unemployment to at least three million."

Most recent figures from the Office for National Statistics show that the rise in unemployment between August and October is the smallest quarterly increase since spring 2008.