There are mixed messages for interims when it comes to the latest predictions on unemployment.
Whilst the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) recently reported that employers were more confident taking on staff, the CIPD has warned that unemployment in the UK is unlikely to go down to pre-recession levels until 2015.
With the economy beginning to show signs of recovery, CIPD chief economist John Philpott has predicted a gradual increase in net job creation and continued high unemployment for another six years.
He explained that unless the economy rebounds from recession far more strongly than most economists expect, the likelihood is that the recovery will be broadly jobs-light, resulting in a slow grind back towards the pre-recession rate of unemployment.
He went on to say that a weak economic recovery and fears of a double-dip recession could lead to unemployment peaking at 3.5 million and unemployment not returning to 1997 levels for at least a decade.
Philpott added that the government, the Bank of England and their counterparts abroad should maintain expansionary fiscal and monetary policies for as long as necessary.
His predictions were based on a new CIPD report, Jobs: The impact of recession and prospects for recovery, which also claims that job losses in the current downturn have been far less severe than in the recessions of the 1980s and 1990s.