The gloomy economic outlook has worsened as 2009 is forecast to be the worst year for jobs in two decades.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has warned job losses could total 600,000 this year.

Of the 2,604 employees surveyed, 56 per cent expect to receive either less than they did last year, no pay rise or, among a small proportion of them, a pay cut in 2009.

John Philpott, chief economist at the CIPD, said: “Our current expectation, based on available survey evidence and employer soundings, is that the number of redundancies will jump sharply in the early months of 2009, once employers take stock of the economic outlook.

“The period between New Year and Easter is likely to be the worst for redundancies since 1991.”

The group predicts job losses are likely to continue into 2010, taking the final toll of lost jobs to around one million.

“In many workplaces in 2009, HR is therefore going to feel more like ER or Casualty – leastways the sweat and tears – as managers attempt to perform the organisational equivalent of emergency triage to staff traumatised by news of colleagues losing jobs, anxious that they might be next, or simply feeling hard done by because their pay and perks are being scaled back,” Mr Philpott added.

Economists are predicting the recession will deepen over 2009 and expect a recovery in 2010.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) forecasts unemployment will peak in the third quarter of 2010 at around three million, an unemployment rate of nearly ten per cent.