IN DIRE STRAITS: Retrenched people line up at a job centre in London

When St Martins, a food manufacturing company, asked its employees to assemble in the canteen just before Christmas last year, shivers went down many spines. The workers lined up at the appointed hour with trepidation. Their worst fears were soon realised. "Over 500 people lost their jobs that day," says food supervisor Yasmin Deesawala. About 350 of them were of South Asian origin-some managers, others workers who had been at the firm for almost 15 years.

As the impact of the attack on the World Trade Center was felt across the Atlantic, airlines retrenched staff and cancelled deals with food manufacturing companies, which, in turn, laid off staff. While in the US the recession claimed the jobs of mostly white collar workers, in the UK job cuts have been across the board.

Unemployment figures have been rising for three successive months as cutbacks continue. Last month, official figures put unemployment at 963,500. The figures from the Office for National Statistics reflect several months of cost-cutting as companies face up to the economic slowdown. Air services group Alpha Airports cut 923 jobs post 9/11.

It was a bad period for British Airways (BA), too. For the first time since its privatisation 15 years ago, it posted a 20 per cent fall in revenue for the third quarter ending December 31, with losses of £187 million as against a profit of £80 million for the same period a year before. It has already shed 7,200 jobs and more ousters are expected. BA Chief Executive Rod Eddington put it as a cost-cutting exercise-the airline cut costs by 8.5 per cent in the last quarter.

A slump in advertising revenues and unwillingness on the part of investment banks and venture capitalists to invest in media companies have rendered some Asian firms unable to pay its employees. Suresh Patel, for example, who worked as a channel head in a television company has not been paid for over three months. While this father of three has gone ahead and sued the firm, a colleague has stopped coming to work. "I am a member of Broadcasting, Entertainment, Cinematograph and Theatre Union and they have promised that they would get me damages from the company," says Reshma Patel, who worked as a production controller.

High flying executives and financial consultants too are bearing the brunt. Sailesh Yadav, an iim Ahmedabad graduate, joined a top American investment bank in London. "We were recruited for London but they were not interested in us. For two months I did not even have a desk!" says Yadav.

Within a year (though with a hefty retrenchment package), he was laid off. Disillusioned, he joined another UK investment firm where he was bullied and ill-treated by his boss. Yadav has now decided to return to India. "Our batch has suffered," he rues. "We got the best placement and one year down the line 10-15 guys were asked to leave from abroad and it happened in India as well."

Other it professionals and software engineers in the UK have taken up part-time and odd jobs for survival. Software engineer Sayed Aslam had a plum job when he came to the UK, but a funds crisis caused the project to close and he suddenly found himself out of a job. Today, he is making do as a sales assistant in a supermarket. "If we do not update ourselves constantly we lose our edge and it becomes difficult to catch up," he regrets. Sayed has given himself a couple of months to find an IT job, failing which he will be back to India.

"The change in the economy has left mass recruiters, such as accountancy and management consultancy firms, with a surplus of good hires and not enough work to go round," says Davenport recruitment consultant Dhiren Vadher.

IT recruitment has been at its lowest in the past four to six months. "Unless you are a specialised consultant, for example an e-strategist or programme manager specialising in e-commerce and specific methodologies, you are going to find a lot of competition each time you apply for a job," says Shelly Nidhi, an it recruiter. "IT workers like developers and test analysts are the worst off at the moment."

But analysts expect the market to recover by "the first quarter of 2002" with property prices rising and the consumer index still strong in the UK. According to the IMF, along with lower commodity prices, such as those for oil, and "substantial policy stimulus" implemented by the US central bank, it was entirely possible that "recovery in 2002 could come more rapidly than expected" in the US.

Job losses and retrenchments have made people realise the importance of unions in Britain. "In the last month alone our membership has gone up by 3,500," reveals Emily Thomas of GMB, one of the better known general trade unions. "Where there are recognised unions we are helping by limiting redundancies and getting a compulsory package for the staff. However, we are unable to do much in places where unions are not recognised."

(Names have been changed to protect identity.)