A number of household firms signalled more than 5,000 job cuts, adding to the worsening toll of redundancies spreading across manufacturing.

The biggest cuts were at cable group Virgin Media, which said it was axing around 2,200 UK jobs by 2012 under a sweeping restructure.

Yellow Pages directories firm Yell warned it expected to lose another 1,300 jobs from its business over the coming year, housebuilder Taylor Wimpey confirmed it had axed a further 1,000 jobs and it said property sales slumped by 27% since the beginning of July, and technology firm Psion announced more than 200 job cuts after the company warned on profits.

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) added to the gloom by unveiling plans to close a factory with the loss of 620 jobs following a review of its activities.

The site in Dartford, Kent, is earmarked for closure in 2013 because two of its largest products have been hit by a "substantial" decline in forecast demand.

The company said the two products, for treating epilepsy and herpes, accounted for 60% of total manufacturing at the Dartford plant.

Virgin Media said it would not start cutting jobs until the fourth quarter of next year, with the majority of the role reductions taking place before the end of 2010.

The job losses come as part of a group-wide overhaul following a review this year made in the wake of the firm's formation by the merger of Telewest and ntl in 2006.

Virgin Media has 76 offices across the UK, with its major bases including sites in London, Edinburgh, Nottingham and Sheffield.

The Communication Workers Union said it was "shocked and disappointed" at the job losses.

The latest cutbacks at Yell will be felt across the company as the firm looks for annual cost savings of £100 million by the end of March 2010.

Reading-based Yell reduced its workforce by a similar amount in the past year, but the company said it hoped the majority of the new job losses could still be achieved by non-replacement of departing staff.

The owner of Yellow Book in the United States and Spain's Yell Publicidad employed 13,900 people in September.

It is likely Yell will look to shift more resources to the internet, which accounted for 15% of total revenues in the six months to September 30.

Chief executive John Condron said the job cuts were in readiness for continued tough trading conditions.

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

The recent raft of job losses at Taylor Wimpey brings its total jobs cull to nearly 1,900 in the UK this year, with the firm offering little hope of better times as it warned there was no immediate end in sight for the property downturn.

Today's grim update came as figures suggested that the number of home sales in the UK had fallen to at least a 30-year low, according to the latest survey from the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Taylor Wimpey reported net reservations of 165 on average a week since July 1, despite slashing prices to maintain sales.

Britain's biggest housebuilder said its order book stood at 6,607 homes – 40% less than at this time last year.

Psion, the hand-held computer and mobile phone software specialist, said companies shelving IT projects amid the economic slowdown had hit sales and was now expected to have an impact on full-year figures.

Psion is reducing its workforce by 15% in an attempt to save around £15 million a year, although this also includes aims to create 30 jobs by the end of 2008.

Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB union said: "The loss of jobs is accelerating rapidly every day and bodes terribly for tomorrow's unemployment figures, which are bound to be higher. The recession is well and truly upon us."

The jobless total is expected to top 1.8 million when new figures are released tomorrow (Wednesday), the highest level since 1998, a year after Labour came to power.

The number of people claiming jobseeker's allowance is predicted to jump by at least 40,000, increasing pressure on ministers to tackle the growing jobs crisis.

Economists expect both measures of unemployment to rise. Howard Archer, chief economist at Global Insight said the claimant count was in line to have risen for a ninth month in a row, leaving the total just short of a million.

Ross Walker, economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, said: "Unemployment has been rising for most of this year, with data since the summer showing a significant acceleration. Given our expectations for negative GDP outturns into 2009, unemployment is forecast to rise by 900,000 to a peak of 2.7 million, a rate of 8.5% – levels not seen for over a decade."