The public sector is gearing up for 350,000 job cuts in the next five years. The pain will be widespread and may damage recory.

Last week’s job figures painted a picture of a public sector protected from the worst of the recession but that’s about to change. According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), headcount there will be axed savagely until 2014.

John Philpott, Chief Economist and Director of Public Policy at the CIPD, said: “Predictions of reduced pain in the jobs market, and a lower peak in the jobless totals, are premature.  The public sector has yet to feel the full impact of the recession, and the resultant bloodbath in the public finances.”

The CIPD’s current estimate is that the fiscal squeeze implied by government plans will result in a total of 350,000 job cuts in the public sector overall between 2010/11 and 2014/15. This will be preceded by around 30,000 job cuts in local authorities in the next year.

Cuts, even on this scale, would still leave the public sector workforce bigger than it was when Gordon Brown became Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1997. “That leaves ample scope for a new government of whatever hue to take an even bigger axe to public sector jobs after the General Election,” said the CIPD.

The public sector fallout
It warned that public sector austerity might not only witness large scale job cuts but also damage private sector recovery. It fears there will be, "workplace guerrilla war marked by waves of major public sector strikes and regular bouts of unrest".

Philpott said said one brake could be wider public opinion, "which is less sympathetic to public sector woes given the gulf between, “generous public sector pensions and private sector schemes that have been squeezed and in many cases closed.”