MORE than 600,000 public sector jobs have been lost since the coalition came to power, with fresh cuts set to take the total to a million by the time of the next election, according to a new study.

The GMB union said its research showed the impact of the coalition’s austerity measures.

As well as the job losses, the pay of public sector workers had been held down in the past few years, forcing them to accept a wage cut, the union said.

The study showed that 631,000 public sector jobs had been cut across the UK since the last election, with up to 400,000 expected to be axed in the next two years.

The biggest percentage cut has been in the South-West (13.9 per cent), followed by the North-East (13.8 per cent), West-Midlands (11.5 per cent) and North-West (11.4 per cent), said the GMB.

It comes as a recruitment firm said private sector job vacancies are at their highest for four years, although salaries remain static.

A Reed survey showed jobs had risen by nearly a quarter over the past year, with nearly 8,000 posts added to its website in one day last month.

Vacancies in manufacturing and retail are particularly buoyant – up by nearly a third compared with a year ago – although the best performing sector was construction, with a 78 per cent increase, said Reed. But pay remained the same as a year ago and was four per cent lower than four years ago.