Savings needed to survive a jobless epidemic

Helen Coffey, The Independent

One in four of us would run out of money within one month if we lost our jobs. It’s an unsurprising if sobering fact uncovered by new research. Unsurprising, because, well — have you seen the price of toothpaste these days? Sobering, because the threat of unemployment is increasing by the day across many industries. The figure was revealed by a survey for The Times based on YouGov polling of more than 2,000 British workers. When asked how long their savings, insurance and benefits would cover their expenses if they became unemployed tomorrow, 26 per cent answered either less than a month (16 per cent) or one month (10 per cent). A further 11 per cent said they’d survive for two months; almost half (48 per cent) said they’d make it no further than three.

It’s further evidence that we are becoming less financially resilient. A third of British adults would not be able to afford an unexpected but necessary expense of £850, according to ONS data; 22 per cent said they had to borrow more money or use more credit than usual in November 2025. Most people are well aware that they should be regularly saving, not for some nebulous future “rainy day”, but to build up an essential buffer should they find themselves unexpectedly jobless. And it really is essential: research from the charity Shelter in 2023 found that half of working UK renters are just one pay cheque away from becoming homeless. “But for the grace of God” has never felt more pertinent a sentiment.

Yet saving has become increasingly difficult amid spiralling living costs. Though the 41-year inflation spike of 11.1 per cent in October 2022 has subsequently eased to 3.2 per cent, “the cumulative effect of rising prices means households face a much higher cost of living than in 2021,” according to a government report published last month. In November 2025, 61 per cent of British adults reported an increase in their cost of living compared with the previous month. Some 95 per cent of these said this was because food shopping had risen in price, while 68 per cent said it was because gas and electricity bills had gone up.

Those who were already financially struggling the most are being squeezed the hardest. Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that households with the lowest incomes experienced a higher-than-average inflation rate in 2023. While real median household incomes, adjusted for Consumer Price Index inflation, fell by 1.6 per cent in real terms between 2019/20 and 2022/23, they fell by a whopping 6.6 per cent for households with the lowest 10 per cent of incomes.

At the same time, employment has never felt more precarious for many workers. Just this week, Tesco chief Ashwin Prasad warned that the nation is in danger of “sleepwalking into an epidemic” of joblessness. “My perspective from leading a major employer in this country is that far fewer people are in work than there could be,” he said.

The UK unemployment rate is currently 5.1 per cent, its highest level since the end of the pandemic in January 2021. And it may climb to an 11-year high in 2026, 48 leading economists predicted in The Times’s annual Economists Survey.

ONS data shows that the number of estimated job vacancies had dropped by 69,000 (8.6 per cent), year-on-year, in the period between October and December 2025. Across 13 of 18 industry sectors, the number of roles had decreased.

While Prasad hit out at regulation and increasing hiring costs that companies were being forced to absorb, the unstoppable onslaught of AI is also being blamed for an uncertain future. At the end of last year, the governor of the Bank of England warned that the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence would have a similar impact to the Industrial Revolution in terms of displacing people from jobs.

Entry-level jobs in the UK have already dropped by almost a third (32 per cent) since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, according to research by job search site Adzuna. A 2025 study by King’s College London, meanwhile, found that firms whose workforces were “highly exposed to AI capabilities” reduced employment by an average of 4.5 per cent, with junior positions by far the most affected — these fell by 5.8 per cent.

The UK is being harder hit than other economies, too. A new study by investment bank Morgan Stanley suggested that the country is losing more jobs than it is creating due to AI, and that it is more badly affected than comparative nations. Net job losses over the past year were reported by British companies to be 8 per cent, the highest rate out of rival large economies including the US, Germany and Japan.

So, given that the risk of joblessness seems particularly real right now, how much should we have saved if the worst should happen? The number £10,000 gets bandied around a lot — though this, especially for young people, might feel ambitious on top of saving for a house deposit while contributing to a workplace pension, paying off student loans and, essentially, just trying to live.

The ideal amount will depend on an individual’s personal circumstances in terms of both monthly earnings and expected outgoings. Financial advisers recommend saving around 20 per cent of your annual salary, but that’s the total amount of savings, covering longer-term plans like house deposits and shorter-term ambitions like a holiday pot or wedding fund, as well as that crucial emergency buffer. Various experts recommend having cash reserves of three to six months’ worth of “essential spending” — rent or mortgage, food, bills — in an emergency savings account. There are emergency fund calculators online that are useful for working out how much you should have squirrelled away. This money should be separate to your current account, but also accessible; the key word here is “emergency”, so having it locked away in a hard-to-withdraw stocks and shares ISA defeats the purpose.

It should also be separate to other savings goals — it may be tempting to dip into your emergency fund to top up a house deposit (or pay for a flight to Bali), for example, but resist the urge. The emergency fund should remain untouched and for — you guessed it — emergencies only, such as a surprise boiler repair bill.

Key to embarking on a savings goal is understanding how much money you have in the first place. Add up essential monthly expenses — housing costs, council tax, energy bills, water bill, internet bill, phone bill, car insurance, food costs and transport costs — subtract these from your incomings, and work out how much you can realistically save while budgeting for extra spending on things like leisure activities and hobbies. Then set up a monthly standing order to your emergency savings account to make sure you stick to it. And remember the cardinal rule: something is better than nothing. Yes, for many Brits, saving has never felt more out of reach — but it’s never been more necessary.