By Sally Watson, 23 August 1999 14:49
NEWS UK workers are more insecure about their job prospects than at any time in the last 50 years - and technology is largely to blame. According to a report published today by the Centre for Business Research at Cambridge University, job insecurity is particularly widespread among professional workers, who are worried about the effects of mergers and the introduction of IT. Dr David Lapido of the Centre for Business Research, said: "There's a lot of change, a lot of churning, and IT has driven a lot of that. The development of IT has stripped out a lot of middle management who dealt with paperwork and processing. We had anticipated this - but didn't expect the speed at which it happened." The research, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, also blames insecurity on the amount of mergers and takeovers in sectors like banking, law and advertising. It claims 40 per cent of interviewees had very little trust in their management and felt work had become much more intense over the last five years. Lapido added: "We knew professionals and managers were starting to feel some of the pain felt by manual workers in the early 80s, but its growth has been very rapid."
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