RESEARCHERS are predicting that the decline in full-time jobs in the UK is to continue over the next decade.

Economic consultants Business Strategies said today that 1.5 million more jobs will be created over the next 10 years.

But half of them will result from men and women setting out to work on their own account and half will be part-time.

It is estimated that women will capture two-thirds of the total growth in work. Dr Neil Blake, research director of Business Strategies, said today: "With employers creating almost no extra full-time jobs, 790,000 more people will opt for self-employment between now and 2006.

"This enterprise activity is a positive response to the down-sizing, contracting out and re-structuring seen in many UK firms, which is by no means complete."

The full results of the research, which has been funded by the Department for Education and Employment, will be presented at a London conference on November 12.

Dr Blake said: "The largest increase in self-employment will be for the new highly-skilled workers, ranging from designers to computer programmers.

"There will also be many more self-employed professionals and sole proprietors, as well as traditional skilled construction workers."

The report forecasts that there will also be another 770,000 jobs for employees by 2006, but that almost all of these (725,000) will be part-time.

Many will be in personal services ranging from bar work to childcare.

There will also be many more part-time jobs for shop workers.

Research suggests that women will continue to dominate part-time work and that their share of self-employment, though small, will rise.

Meanwhile, more men will work for employers part-time.

Business Strategies Director Richard Holt said the extra jobs would do little to bring down the number of people registered as unemployed, which they believed would fall by just 131,000 between 1996 and 2006.

The fastest rises in employment overall (27pc) would be for many professional workers such as lawyers, accountants and even doctors - but not teachers and lecturers.

It is estimated that there will also be an increase of 25pc in the number of associate professional jobs such as computer programmers and legal executives, and a strong growth (18pc) in personal service occupations such as those in the leisure sector.

Farm labourers are set to see the fastest decline in overall jobs (14pc), closely followed by skilled engineering workers (down 13pc).

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