- John Bowker is Reuters’ UK transport and defence correspondent. The opinions expressed are his own -

Lord Mandelson was in buoyant mood on Thursday night.

The future ownership of British car-maker Vauxhall had finally been decided. U.S. giant General Motors agreed to sell its European unit -- which includes Vauxhall -- to Canadian car parts maker Magna and its Russian backers. According to Mandelson, this was good news for the Vauxhall's 5,000 British workers as it removed the uncertainty over their futures. Everyone can get back to work making cars and live happily ever after.

But for Mandelson the game is only just beginning. He is putting on a brave face now but he must know it is not that simple. He says Magna has assured him to his face that the British plants in Luton and Ellesmere Port will remain open. But for how long? He cannot say. And at what cost? Again -- the details are yet to be finalised.

The union leader at Ellesmere Port tells me that an earlier draft of Magna's business plan called for 830 job cuts at the plant, about 40 percent of the work force. This will be tied to lower output and changes to the pension scheme. Meanwhile, both Ellesmere Port and Luton have no entitlement to build the newer 'green' cars that have become a staple condition for future state support. Ellesmere Port will build the new Astra from this month, but what about next decade?

It is hard to overstate how much political wrangling has gone into the GM deal. It has involved Washington, Belgium, Spain, Poland -- but particularly Germany, where around half of GM Europe's workers are based. Magna secured Germany's support by promising not to close any German plants -- so who will take up the slack?

Mandelson is obliged to provide state support to Magna in return for keeping Vauxhall afloat. But there is no way the deal will go through without at least some job losses - possibly many hundreds. That means the Business Secretary will be putting up millions of pounds of taxpayers money to support a company intent on cutting British jobs. Where's the fairness in that?

The auto industry world has changed forever. We simply do not need as many cars as in the past, and the end of recession will not return demand to previous levels. This means Mandelson and Vauxhall workers must accept some scaling back. But how much do you accept? What good will it do? And how much will we have to pay for it?

These are not questions you envy Mandelson for having to answer. But that's what we pay him for.

Losing your job can come as a massive shock, even if it is something you have been worrying about for months. The latest figures show that for the first time in over a decade the number of people out of work has risen above two million.

If you are one of them, you probably want to find a new job as quickly as possible. Here are a number of useful resources to help you.

Redundancy procedure, your rights, unfair dismissal

Directgov

Citizens’s Advice

CAB Advice Guide

The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service

Debt

Consumer Credit Counselling Service

National Debtline

CAB Advice Guide

Find legal advice

Law Centres Federation

Law Society

Payment protection insurance

Association of British Insurers

Benefits and financial support

Jobcentre Plus

CAB Advice Guide

Directgov

Careers advice and retraining

Directgov Careers Advice

Tax guides

HM Revenue and Customs

It’s widely acknowledged to be bad for your health but millions do it, even without getting paid for it. The Trades Union Congress (TUC) said on Thursday the number of people working hours they are not paid for is at its highest level since 1992.

Five million worked unpaid overtime last year because of a “long-hours” culture and concern that the economic downturn is putting their jobs at risk. The largest increase in workers carrying out unpaid overtime occurred in London, followed by the east Midlands and eastern England.

Have you been asked to work extra hours, and how is it affecting your work/life balance?

A small but growing number of companies are considering asking their workers to take a pay cut as a means of cutting costs without having to fire anyone.

In the latest example, three unions representing steelworkers at Corus have offered to take a 10 percent cut across the company’s entire UK workforce of 25,000 for six months in an attempt to save one of the last remaining steel factories in Britain — the plant at Llanwern in Newport, South Wales.

The steelmaking part of Llanwern was shut in 2001 with 1,300 redundancies but the site still makes steel sheets and employs more than 1,000 people.

India’s Tata Group, which bought the Anglo-Dutch company last year, has said it wants to cut costs by 350 million pounds in both the UK and the Netherlands as it cuts production by 30 percent.

Other possible solutions include cutting employees’ working hours. Corus in the Netherlands, for example, is asking 6,400 workers to each work one day less perweek for six weeks — the equivalent of cutting 1,100 full-time jobs.

In another example, engineering firm JCB has managed to limit job losses after the GMB union agreed to accept a shorter and lower-paid working week

As the downturn bites and announcements of  huge job losses become a daily event, do you think such solutions are the answer. Would you take a pay cut? Or is there an element here of employers using the dire economic situation to extract unfair concessions from their workforces?

Net job creation in the UK has almost stopped as employers feel pessimistic about prospects for the economy, the latest quarterly Labour Market Outlook survey by KPMG and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has found.

The balance between the proportion of employers looking to increase staff levels over the next three months and those expecting to cut has fallen from +41 in autumn 2007 to +2 in autumn 2008 – the lowest figure recorded since the survey began in spring 2004, according to the Payroll and Human Resources Newsletter.

Of the 721 employers surveyed, 83 per cent anticipated that Britain’s economic condition would further deteriorate this autumn and only one percent said they thought there would be an improvement.Respondents felt more optimistic about their own organisation though, with only 25 per cent believing that things would get worse.

Even though inflation is running at a 16-year high of 5.2 percent, staff pay excluding bonuses is seen increasing on average by just 3.5 per cent when the next pay review is due, while the expected average increase including bonuses has risen from 3.9 per cent to 4 per cent.

With official UK unemployment data for October due out on Wednesday, CIPD Chief Economist John Philpott sees a gloomy winter ahead:  “With pay increases at best modest for those still in work, the harsh chill of recession will make this the toughest winter for UK households for almost two decades.”

Tell us what impact the downturn has had on you and your business. How has staff morale been affected?

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell wants long-term job-seekers to work for their state benefits.

If they have been jobless for a year, they will have to do four weeks of community work with a government-backed private or public body. After two years, they will have to take a full-time job.

People who abuse the system could also be made to work in return for benefits.

Purnell says the welfare system needs a radical overhaul to force people to take more responsibility for themselves.

“One of the reasons Labour lost the trust of the country and the chance of power for 18 years was that we convinced ourselves that you help the poor only by handing out more and more in benefits,” he wrote in the Guardian. “We left individual responsibility - so important to the founders of the welfare state - out of the equation.”

The minister also wants to get one million people off incapacity benefit by 2015.

The Conservatives have welcomed the proposed reforms, but say Labour has stolen some of its key ideas. Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Chris Grayling said the government has wasted billions of pounds by failing to reform the welfare system sooner.

Do you support the government’s welfare reforms? Should jobseekers be made to work for their benefits?