One in three companies expect that they will have to make redundancies by the end of September, according to research carried out for the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development (CIPD) and the Adecco recruitment organisation.

The survey revealed that 42 per cent of firms had frozen recruitment, with the worst-hit sectors being hospitality, business services and IT. Almost a fifth of employers have cut wages, with construction workers worst affected.

The report comes as Britain’s economy is expected to officially enter recession this week after a record 20 per cent fall in the spring quarter.

In October the government will end the taxpayer-funded job-retention scheme, which handed employers’ money to pay workers temporarily laid off due to the pandemic.

Labour’s shadow work & pensions secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “The removal of government support while some businesses have yet to even open their doors again has created a jobs crisis.

“Every job lost is a tragedy. We know that unemployment scars employees, their families and their communities. The government must act now to put an end to this jobs crisis.

“The government’s one-size-fits-all approach is clearly not working and they must now adopt a tailored approach, getting support to where it is needed to prevent even more redundancies.”

Unite general secretary Len McCluskey accused the government of a “criminal lack of engagement.”

“We warned that the tapering of the jobs-retention scheme would see redundancy notices fly around like confetti and, sadly, this is coming to pass,” he said. (Morning Star — IPA Service)