UK unemployment is set to climb even further after a range of British businesses today announced over 4,000 job cuts in under 12 hours.

This afternoon, Virgin Media announced that it will axe 2,200 jobs between now and 2012 in a major restructuring of the business.

The cable, internet and phone company, in which Sir Richard Branson is the biggest shareholder, has not finalised which departments or locations will be affected by the staff cuts. But it played down the economic climate, blaming instead the merger of NTL and Telewest in 2006.

This morning, Yell, the publisher of the Yellow Pages, revealed plans to cut 1,300 jobs, of which 300 will be from the UK, in a drive to save £100 million. It is the second round of redundancies the company has announced in two years.

Taylor Wimpey, the housebuilder, said it had axed 1,000 employees, bringing its toll to almost 2,000 redundancies following the sharp slowdown in the housing market and the slump in demand for new homes.

Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline, the world's second-biggest drugs maker, said it would close down its Dartford manufacturing site, in the South East of England, by 2013 with the loss of 620 jobs.

While Psion, the British handheld computer maker, will lay-off 200 staff.

Today’s total tally of over 4,000 job cuts emerged ahead of new employment figures, due out tomorrow, that are expected to show benefit claimant numbers have climbed by between 38,000 and 50,000 in October.

Last month, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit rose by 31,800 in September. While the rate of unemployment surged at the fastest pace in 17 years by 164,000 to 1.79 million in the three months to August.

Virgin said today that most of its job reductions are expected to be pushed through between the fourth quarter of 2009 and the end of 2010.

Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media, said: "These changes are critical to ensuring Virgin Media is positioned to compete effectively and deliver on our customers' changing expectations."

Virgin Media said it would seek, where possible, to "mitigate the need for redundancy" and offer alternative roles to the staff in question. It employs 14,600 people in the UK.

Mr Berkett said: "We recognise that this brings with it significant uncertainty for our people and the communities where they work. Throughout the process, we will be communicating as early and as openly as we can."

Today's announcement comes a week after Virgin Media said it had agreed with its banks to postpone repayments on its £4.3 billion debt until 2012, giving it an extra three years to refinance its loans.

While Virgin Media did not point to the current economic conditions as a cause of the job losses, its announcement comes at a time of intense concern about employment security during the downturn.

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