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The business services sector could see more than 300,000 jobs lost in the next three years, a new report claims.

According to the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR), the economic downturn will cause more than half of the jobs created in the industry over the past five years to be lost by 2011, with cuts of around 334,000 employees predicted.

The report notes that the business services sector, which encompasses fields such as accounting, IT consultancy, law and property management has been one of the strongest performing areas in the UK’s economy, creating around one-third of all new jobs.

However, it predicts that this trend will now start to reverse, with employment tipped to fall by eight per cent from its 2008 peak over the coming five years.

Advertising is singled out by the research as facing the worst future, with 15,000 jobs expected to be cut.

Ben Read, a managing economist at the CEBR, comments: 'The business services sector, one of UK plc's leading lights in recent years, will find the operating environment for the next five years to be very different compared with the previous five years.'

Last week, the Office for National Statistics revealed that UK unemployment has hit a 12-year high of more than 2.2 million, or 7.2 per cent of the working population.

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