With the UK on the brink of a recession and poor rental growth forcing the first round of redundancies in the property industry, a commercial organisation has fast-tracked programmes to assist workers in the sector facing redundancy.
The Investment Property Forum (IPF), an organisation for commercial real estate professionals, pushed through several proposals last week to aid its 1,900 members with networking events and information sessions.
Sue Forster, IPF executive director, told Personnel Today: “We think it’s better to have a number of things in place quite quickly. We can always look again in the future at what we might have to do to supplement that, but it’s important to get something in place now, just in case.”
The organisation already runs free seminars allowing members to keep up to date with the market and maintain industry contacts. In the next few weeks it plans to begin providing informal careers advice for members who are made redundant, Forster said.
“It’s difficult to tell what sort of numbers we’re looking at with redundancies, but we feel it’s better safe than sorry,” she added. “We’re keen to support members in their search for new career opportunities.”
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Leading estate agency Savills has already effectively shut down its entire residential development sales team with 20 redundancies, and competitors CB Richard Ellis and Knight Frank are expected to make similar moves soon, according to Personnel Today’s sister title, Estates Gazette.
The IPF said a jobs site would hopefully be launched by the end of the month to help workers made redundant, as well as support groups for affected individuals.
