More than a third of young adults ‘expect to lose job or see pay or hours cut’

More than a third (35%) of young adults think they will lose their job or see their pay or hours cut due the economic impact of coronavirus, a survey has found.

Some 17% of 18 to 24-year-olds believe they will be made redundant in the coming months.

A further 18% in this age group anticipate they will have to take a pay cut or reduced hours, according to comparethemarket.com’s latest household financial confidence tracker.

While anxiety around employment and pay appears to be considerably higher among those starting out on the job ladder than other age groups, there is still significant concern among the general population, the research carried out between June 5 and 7 found.

More than one in 10 (12%) people expect to be made redundant and 14% believe they will have to take a pay cut or reduced hours.

More than a fifth (21%) of 18 to 24-year-olds said they had struggled to pay bills in the previous week, up from 18% the week before, and nearly a quarter (24%) believe they will struggle in the coming weeks, up from a fifth (20%) a week before.

Across the population generally, confidence about paying the bills has improved.

Some 16% said they had found managing household finances “difficult” over the past seven days, easing down from 18% a week before.

And 17% said they are worried about struggling to pay bills in the coming weeks, down from 20% the week before, the survey of more than 2,000 people found.

Continuing a trend seen in previous surveys, families with children living at home still tend to show a higher level of financial anxiety.

Nearly a quarter (24%) in this group expect to struggle to meet their financial obligations in the coming weeks, although this is a slight improvement from 26% the previous week, the weekly tracker found.

Anna McEntee, product director at comparethemarket.com, said: “With so many people having to increase borrowing or take payment holidays to meet their household costs, we are potentially heading towards a crunch point where people, particularly younger people who have less by way of savings, are required to pay back money they owe with less income behind them.

“It will be incumbent on financial services providers to be as flexible as possible to help their customers through what promises to be an extremely challenging period of time.”