1 in 5 Yorkshire workers has wages cut in recession

Jun 2 2009 By Henryk Zientek

But he said there was increasing concern that the private sector was bearing the brunt of the recession – with rising unemployment and wage restraint – at a time when the public sector seemed to be immune from the same hardships.

Keep Britain Working said the Honda decision demonstrated how flexible the British workforce has been – and how changing working terms had helped firms avoid even greater job cuts.

The Keep Britain Working survey showed that over the past nine months, 27% of UK workers have had their pay cut, 24% have had their hours reduced and 24% have lost benefits, according to the survey.

While 37% of UK workers have experienced just one of these changes, 12% have experienced two of them and 5% have experienced all three.

Some 40% have been given extra duties, while one in five have had the nature of their role change within the same organisation.

Just 2% have been offered a part-paid sabbatical, while 6% have been offered an unpaid sabbatical since the recession began.

Some 54% of people polled said they were more pessimistic about job prospects this month than they were last month – with only 17% saying they were more optimistic.

James Reed, founder of the Keep Britain Working Campaign, said: "The UK workforce has demonstrated unprecedented flexibility during this recession, allowing organisations to explore a whole range of cost-cutting responses other than relying solely on redundancies.

"British workers are increasingly pessimistic about job prospects in the immediate future, but overall workers appear to be making common cause with their managers to help keep people working."