There is renewed concern about the fragility of the British economy today after warnings from the high street, the housing market and industry added to fears that a UK recession is increasingly inevitable.

Yell, publisher of the Yellow Pages, today revealed plans to slash a further 1,300 jobs while Vodafone, the UK telecoms giant, warned that its sales could fall by as much as £1 billion by the end of the year.

At the same time, it emerged that the total value of retail sales in the UK has fallen for the first time in three years, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC).

In its monthly sales monitor, an indicator of the mood on the high street, the BRC reported that like-for-like sales were down 2.2 per cent in October, and total sales fell 0.1 per cent, the first annual drop since April 2005.

Stephen Robertson, director general of the BRC, said the poor figures reflected a "record low" in consumer confidence.

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG, the accountancy firm which collates information for the survey, was doubtful that the Bank of England's higher-than-expected 1.5 per cent cut in interest rates last week would help retailers through Christmas.

"It is unlikely that the much-needed 1.5 per cent rate cut will influence Christmas spending patterns — historically it takes a number of months for rate cuts to feed through into spending," she said.

"Retailers can only hope that the October performance is not representative of consumers' spending intentions for the next six weeks. However, there is no doubt retailers will need to resort to heavy discounting to bolster sales over this crucial trading period."

Troubles also persist in the housing market. The latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) showed that sales fell to their lowest level since they began their monthly analysis in 1978.

Estate agents in England and Wales sold an average of only 10.9 properties per firm in the 12 weeks to the beginning of November, less than one a week, and in London agents were struggling to sell one house a fortnight, the lowest level of sales since the series began in 1978.

Nationwide, Britain's biggest building society, gave warning that the entire mortgage lending market would fall by 80 per cent this year. Its own market share has slipped from 6.2 per cent to 5.6 per cent, and new mortgage lending at Nationwide fell from £3.6 billion to £1 billion in the six months to September.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML) also released its monthly assessment of the market today. It found that the market for new mortgages continued to shrink in September as new home loans fell by almost 60 per cent compared to the same period in 2007.

However, the CML said 51 per cent of homebuyers avoided paying stamp duty in September, after the Government suspended the tax on homes valued at under £175,000.

Official figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government showed a 5.1 per cent drop in house prices in September compared to 2007.

Taylor Wimpey, the housebuilder, said it anticipated no recovery for the housing market in the short term, as it revealed that orders have almost halved in the past year.

Elsewhere this morning, Vodafone gave warning that its revenue for the full year could be as much as £1 billion lower than anticipated, as it embarked on a fresh strategy and cost-cutting drive. The world's largest mobile phone company unveiled a 17.1 per cent increase in revenues to £19.9 billion for the six months to the end of September, but pre-tax profits plunged from £4.5 billion in the first half of last year to £3.3 million in 2008.

Yell, the publisher of the Yellow Pages, said that it planned to cut up to 1,300 jobs over the next ten months as it presses ahead with a plan to reduce costs by £100 million by the end of March 2010. The cuts mark the second major drive to reduce costs at Yell in just over a year. During the 12 months to September, Yell cut about 1,300 jobs, which will have saved about £150 million.

Yell has been facing difficulties for a number of years, but this morning John Condron, the chief executive, said the global economic difficulties were behind the latest round of cuts.

"Global economic trends show no sign of improving; therefore, we are actively working on further cost reduction programmes that will primarily benefit next year," he said.

The figures from the BRC and RICS depressed the pound. Sterling fell to $1.55 against the dollar on the currency markets this morning.

The UK economy slipped into negative growth for the first time in 16 years in the three months from July to September. The technical definition of a recession is two quarters of negative growth.

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