25,000 public sector jobs go

Scotland lost 25,000 public sector jobs in the 12 months to June 2011, a new report reveals.

Business advisers PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) said the 4.1 per cent fall brings the total number of public sector jobs lost across the UK since December 2009 to almost 300,000.

The report, Spending Review: One Year On, claims that the scale of public sector job cuts is much deeper and has occurred much faster than was projected by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR).

The average drop for the whole of the UK is slightly higher than in Scotland, driven by well below average cuts in the other devolved regions of Northern Ireland and Wales.

“The public sector job losses have come much faster than anticipated,” said Paul Brewer, government and public sector leader at PwC in Scotland. “After only one quarter of data for this financial year, the job losses in the public sector have already exceeded the OBR forecast for the whole of the 2011-12 financial year.”

Mr Brewer added: “The total number of job cuts over the spending review period to 2015 will not necessarily be that much greater than forecast, as job losses may be lower in later years, but earlier than expected job cuts have sapped demand at a time when the economy is already relatively weak due to a series of global economic shocks this year.”

The biggest losses across the country have come from sectors with traditionally high levels of public sector employment and funding – such as administration, defence, education and construction – with the exception of the health sector which, according to official data from the Office for National Statistics, has seen increases in total jobs.

Mr Brewer said: “While employment news for Scotland seems marginally better than for the rest of the UK, there is no room for complacency.

“The Scottish Government’s focus on capital investment in the recent spending review will help future employment. However, the impact will be relatively small.”