Employers need to retain staff to see out the economic downturn, according to an HR consultancy.

Rob Coates, managing director of Willerby Hill, has claimed that employers may regret making redundancies due to worsening economic conditions.

Coates said: “The fact is that, whatever the short to medium-term trends, the UK workforce is ageing and shrinking rapidly, with decent staff increasingly aware of their value and far more ambitious.  As such, the employment market is more predatory than ever before and businesses should be positioning themselves as top employers in their sector and geographic area so that they attract and retain the best workers.”