Financial services workers 'less gloomy'

Confidence about job prospects among UK financial services workers improved in July, according to a survey.

The Keep Britain Working campaign, set up by the chairman of Reed recruitment agency earlier this year, recorded a rise in its Job Optimism Index to minus 23, up from minus 35 in May.

The index was based on a poll of 423 people employed in the financial services industry.

It is measured by calculating the difference between the percentage of optimistic and pessimistic workers.

With the index still negative, it is evident that there are continuing concerns about the economy.

Two in five financial services workers (45%) say they were more pessimistic about the employment outlook in July than in June.

The financial services sector survey was part of a wider poll to take the pulse of the country's attitudes to how their employers' are handling the recession.

It comes after the latest employment figures showed a record rise in UK jobless numbers, up 281,000 to 2.38 million in the three months to May.

This takes the unemployment rate to 7.6% - a 10-year high.

Of the 2,900 people interviewed, Keep Britain Working said 52% of UK workers feel positive about their employers' response to the recession.

Nearly a quarter - 23% - believe their employer is doing absolutely everything they can to support their staff through the recession.

But 48% of people in work believe that their employer is actively exploiting the situation by imposing unnecessary pay cuts, reduced hours and redundancies.

Founder of Keep Britain Working James Reed says: "With 95% of workers willing to make sacrifices to help preserve jobs, the challenge for bosses is to explain the hard choices that their organisations face, and work together with staff to explore innovative solutions."

He added: ""As pessimism about job prospects begins to lift, it is these organisations that will retain productive staff and attract skilled workers who feel exploited elsewhere."