The latest Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) quarterly Labour Market Outlook (LMO) survey has found that the first quarter of 2012 will be the most difficult quarter for the jobs market since the recession, as a greater number of private sector firms surveyed are planning to make redundancies.

The report’s net employment balance, which measures the difference between the proportion of LMO employers that intend to increase total staffing levels and those that intend to decrease total staffing levels in the first quarter of 2012, has fallen to -8 from -3 since the autumn 2011 quarter. This is the report’s worst figure since spring 2009.

The results also suggest a further widening of the north-south divide in job prospects. The net employment balance for the south of England has improved modestly to -1 from -4 in the past three months. London is the only region in the UK to register a positive score (+3). In contrast, employment prospects in the north have fallen to -20 from -17 over the same period.

This follows the most recent official Labour Force Survey unemployment statistics which showed that the north east of England (+2.3%) and the north west of England (+1.2%) saw the largest unemployment increases in the 12 months to November 2011.

Other key findings of the report include:

• Organisations that are planning to make redundancies expect 4% of their workforce on average to be made redundant.
• Six out of ten LMO employers are not planning to create any new roles in the next three months.
• Looking ahead to the next five years, LMO employers anticipate an increase in demand for roles in business and development (28%), sales and marketing (24%) and IT staff (20%).
• Business support functions have borne the brunt among those employers that say they have been prevented from creating new roles during the past two years.