The Government expects 490,000 public sector workers to lose their jobs by 2014-15 as a direct result of today’s spending review.
This was revealed when chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, let two pages of a draft of the Comprehensive Spending Review be photographed.
According to the Guardian, the document warns that the slash in public sector spending will “inevitably impact” on workers as payroll currently accounts for around half of departmental spending.
The pages add that public sector pay packages have been generous, with some four times the amount of those in the private sector.
To reduce the level of redundancies, the review says that employers should make deals with staff to cut hours. It also states that public sector bosses should “determine the workforce implications of spending settlements”.
Government plans were revealed in the document to “do everything they can to mitigate the impact of redundancies” by encouraging private sector growth and supporting workers facing redundancy to find private sector jobs.
The Office of Budget Responsibility, which estimated the level of redundancy resulting from the spending review, will produce a new forecast on 25 November but expect this to show a similar outlook on job cuts.
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Chancellor George Osborne is scheduled to speak to the House of Commons immediately after Prime Minister’s Questions, which begins at 12:00pm.
