UK employment prospects are to nosedive in the first quarter of 2002, according to a survey by the international recruitment organisation, Manpower.

Manpower’s Quarterly Survey of Employment Prospects, released earlier this month, showed the steepest quarter-on-quarter drop in the survey’s 33-year history.

The fall equals the severe drop in prospects in the first quarter of 1999, according to the survey of 2,000 UK companies across 12 regions and 19 industries.

The survey works by calculating ‘net job gains’, by subtracting the percentage of companies expecting to reduce staff numbers from the percentage expecting to take on staff.

As in 1999, the national average job gains in the first quarter of 2002 will drop to 0 from +20 in the previous quarter.

In 1999, the job market recovered shortly after the new year slump – but Manpower managing director Iain Herbertson said a swift upturn was less likely this year.

‘Only healthcare and building are showing strong signs of confidence, probably reflecting health spending commitments and low interest rates.

‘Most others, especially leisure, retail, manufacturing and telecommunications – which is expecting its worst employment prospects since 1996 – are in, at least, short-term decline.

‘No one region can be said to be significantly optimistic, with London’s prospects the worst they have been since 1994.’