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Businesses will continue to make redundancies next year, predicts the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD).  

The UK economy is set to shed a further 250,000 jobs before unemployment peaks at 2.8 million in 2010, claims the employment body.

However, it adds this figure could be higher depending on the severity of public spending cuts and whether employers take into account national insurance contribution increases for 2011 when making staffing decisions. 

John Philpott, chief economic adviser to the CIPD, says: ‘Private sector employers will seek to contain wage costs and public sector employers will have to cope with the consequences of fast shrinking budgets and mass job downsizing.’

Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that UK unemployment rose by 21,000 in the three months to October to 2.49 million, taking the unemployment rate up to a 13-year high of 7.9 per cent.