More than 3000 jobs were axed or under threat today as Marks & Spencer led the cull with the loss of 1230 posts.

It was followed closely by doorstep lender Cattles, which said it will axe 1000 staff ahead of a likely fall in profits this year.

The group, which lends to clients who cannot get credit elsewhere, intends to cut the amount of new business it writes by around 75% in 2009 as it tries to conserve cash.

Cattles said it expects the reduction in business volumes to take a chunk out of profits this year, although 2008 earnings are still forecast to be in line with expectations. The job cuts, a fifth of its workforce, are part of a major cost-cutting programme. Cattles has been hit by a funding shortage as it struggles to refinance a £500 million facility with its banking syndicate.

Barclays said it will cut 408 IT posts split between full-time and contract staff with the brunt of the bank's losses in London and Cheshire.

The bank, which employs 63,000 people in the UK, said it would try to lessen the number of compulsory redundancies and offer people alternative roles. But trade union Unite called the cuts a bitter blow. “At this time of economic uncertainty, staff across the industry are working under immense pressure and there is a great deal of nervousness regarding their job security,” Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said. “This loss of jobs, all of which are highly-skilled roles, is a serious loss to the UK's skill base.”

Up to 220 restaurant jobs could be under threat after London chain FishWorks suspended its shares on the Stock Exchange. It is looking for fresh funding or some kind of takeover offer to rescue the ten-strong chain.

Electricals retailer Miller Brothers, which provided defunct Woolworths with online sales, went into administration. It employs just over 100 people. Mizuho Corporate Bank is cutting about 50 jobs in its London operation.

Woolworths' final closure yesterday took the total made redundant by the retailer and its offshoots to 30,000.

Private firms in the United States shed 693,000 jobs in December, up sharply from the revised 476,000 jobs lost in November and far more than economists had estimated, a report by ADP Employer Services said.