Older public sector workers feel particularly vulnerable, with 37% of public sector workers over the age of 55 feeling that their job is not secure over the next 12 months - the highest level of uncertainty for any age group of either public or private sector workers. This is compared with 32% of their private sector peers.
When looking at the medium term, insecurity increases and the gap between the public and private sector widens further. Thirty seven per cent of people said they felt their job was not secure over the next three years including 40% of public sector workers and 35% of people in the private sector. Uncertainty rises significantly among the older age group with almost half (48%) of public sector workers over the age of 55 saying they feel their job is not secure, compared with just over a third (36%) of their private sector peers.
This trend reverses among the younger employees, with 77% of public sector workers aged 16-24 feeling their job is secure over the next 12 months compared with 71% of private sector workers in this age group. However feelings of job security decline over the medium term, with 67% of public sector workers aged 16-24 feeling secure over the next three years compared with 58% of their peers in the private sector.
Richard Brown, senior savings product manager HSBC said: "Obviously we are in a difficult financial period with many people feeling insecure about their job prospects and experiencing a squeeze in their standard of living.
“While this feeling of a lack of job security is particularly acute among older people in the public sector, everyone seems to be feeling the squeeze on their finances.“
Based on the median weekly gross salary of £499, the average person would need £1,667.25 in savings for every month they spent in unemployment to maintain the standard of living they had while they were working. Although many people will have found work relatively quickly, according to the latest ONS Labour Market Survey (February 2011), 1.2 million people were out of work at some point in the last 6 months, meaning that they would need a significant savings pot to cover the unexpected redundancy.
