In the early 1990s it was a recession, in 2001-02 a downturn and in 2007-08 a credit crunch. Different names and conditions but, from an employment lawyer’s perspective, it means much the same thing – redundancies, redundancies and more redundancies.
This time it started when the US sub-prime mortgage market collapsed last summer. We now have, in my view, the worst economic conditions and outlook since the early 1990s. We have the return of negative equity, overall employment in the UK is set to fall for the first time since 1992, house prices are likely to fall by around 8% and the average City bonus (for those who actually keep their jobs) is likely to reduce by 40%. It is not looking good, and it will get a lot worse.
