Businesses operating in services offices and other accommodation have had to pay out £13.4 billion in redundancy payments over the last three years, according to a new report.
The law firm Wedlake Bell showed that the cost of job cutting as a result of the recession has been staggering.
Over the last year alone, employers have paid out £4.4 billion.
Slow economic growth hasn’t helped improve the situation and redundancy payments were only down by two per cent on 2010 findings.
David Israel, head of employment at the law firm, said overall human cost of having to make these redundancies had been massive.
He said: “Whilst the worst of the private-sector cost cutting appears to be over, the public sector has now started to restructure and trim staff levels.”
The study revealed that redundancy payments averaged £9,362 per person, which was equivalent to 18 weeks’ salary.
Although the private sector is showing signs of moving away from cutting jobs, the public sector is now entering into its restructure phase, which will result in big job losses across the sector.
The UK army recently asked 500 of its servicemen to take voluntary redundancies to cope with cuts to the defence budget.
