Employee confidence and trust in senior leaders has dropped to record lows as the economic downturn continues to erode workers’ standard of living and undermine job security. These are the headline findings from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) spring 2011 Employee Outlook survey based on a representative sample of 2,000 people in employment in the UK.

The survey finds the proportion of employees saying their standard of living has worsened in the last six months has increased to 37% from 31% in the previous quarter. Public sector employees are most likely to say their standard of living has worsened (47%) compared with 35% of workers in both the private and voluntary sectors.

Although job insecurity has edged up since the previous quarter, with 21% of employees thinking it likely they could lose their jobs as a result of the downturn compared to 20% last quarter, there is again a big difference in the sectors. Almost one in three (30%) public sector employees say it is likely they could lose their job compared to 19% of those in the private sector and 27% in the voluntary sector. In all, 21% of respondents say their organisation is planning to make redundancies, rising to 58% among public sector respondents. In all 29% of voluntary sector employees say their organisation is planning redundancies, as do 10% of those in the private sector.