CIPD publish report on changes at work since 1952

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development has today published a report that looks at how work has changed in Britain since 1952.

The Work Audit study, which has been released to mark the Queen's Diamond Jubilee year, reveals that at present, there are more than 29 million people in employment in the UK, six million more than in the 1950s but there has been no increase in the total number of hours worked each week.

In the 1950s, only four per cent of people worked part time, 60 years later the proportion is 25 per cent.

The value of output produced by the economy since 1952 has quadrupled, meaning the workforce has become more productive, enabling society to enjoy a much higher standard of living for the same amount of work. Britons are working much smarter than in the 1950s, though at present output per hour is 16 per cent lower than in France, 18 per cent lower than in Germany and 23 per cent lower than in the United States.

While the female working age employment rate has risen from 46 per cent to 66 per cent since the late 1950s, the male employment rate has fallen from 96 per cent to 75 per cent, compared to 60 years ago when virtually all men of working age had a job.

Dr John Philpott, chief economic adviser at the CIPD, said: "In the six decades of Queen Elizabeth's reign, work has continued to be the warp and weft of everyday life.

"Her subjects may devote more of their available time and money to leisure pursuits but even though work has changed in ways that could not be imagined in 1952, the UK still shows no sign of becoming the kind of society predicted by the 'end of work' futurologists of yesteryear.

"Although five years into the Queen's reign as our nation was emerging from the post-austerity, the then Prime Minister Harold MacMillan declared that Britain "had never had it so good", the average material standard of living was very meagre compared with what in 2012, we also call austerity Britain.

"Yet in our more unequal society, with the threat of unemployment an underlying concern, even during good times people do not seem much happier about their working lives and many exhibit the symptoms of work-related stress. Whatever the future of work, the lesson of the past six decades is that increased productivity and prosperity isn't enough to enhance the common good in the workplace or society in general."

For a copy of Britain at work in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, visit www.cipd.co.uk