The number of British jobs lost in the past week reached 25,000 yesterday as four leading companies announced a fresh wave of redundancies.

Nearly 600 posts are to go in the defence, aerospace and drugs industries as BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce and AstraZeneca became the latest to reduce headcounts. Daily Mail and General Trust said it had cut 400 positions in the past two months, a day after Independent News Media announced that 90 positions would go.

The toll continued with Sony Ericsson, the mobile handset maker, disclosing that 200 jobs could go when it shuts its software development site in Manchester as part of a strategy announced in July to cut 2,000 positions across its global workforce. The threat of redundancy has now become an almost daily reality as the recession continues to tighten its grip on Britain.

Yesterday's cuts add to fears that few sectors of the economy are likely to be spared as media and industrial groups joined the rollcall of manufacturers, housebuilders, hotels and restaurants and financial services.

Rolls-Royce, the world's second-largest maker of aircraft engines, said that it expected to slash 140 jobs at its aerospace assembly and test facility in Derby as part of plans to cut up to 2,000, or about 4 per cent, of its global workforce next year.

The group said the cuts were necessary as demand dropped because of an uncertain economic outlook and delays to new aircraft, including the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787.

The company, which announced at the beginning of the year that it would shed 2,300 jobs, said that it wanted to give employees an early indication of the likely scale of job losses and would start a consultation to determine exactly where the axe would fall.

A spokesman said that the group had hoped to reduce its headcount by scaling back its temporary workforce and through natural attrition and voluntary redundancies but that nothing had been decided yet.

Rolls-Royce will continue to recruit graduates and apprentices, who account for about 2 per cent of its workforce.

AstraZeneca, the Anglo-Swedish drugs maker, said that 250 jobs would go at its Macclesfield site as part of plans to cut 1,400 jobs across its workforce worldwide and close three plants in Europe. The pharmaceuticals company said that staff cuts would be carried out through to 2013 after local negotiations.

The announcement follows last week's news that GlaxoSmithKline was cutting a further 620 jobs at its Dartford manufacturing site.

BAE Systems, the defence company, also gave notice that a further 200 jobs are to go across its factories in Newcastle, Leeds, Leicester, Barrow and Telford. The company, which blamed the cuts on declining workload on the Armoured Fighting Vehicle Programme for the Ministry of Defence, said it would begin a voluntary redundancy programme immediately.

Last week BT announced that 10,000 jobs would go, with the majority of positions to hit the UK. Since last week the Royal Bank of Scotland has said it will cut 3,000 jobs, Virgin Media announced 2,200 losses by 2012 and JCB announced almost 400 redundancies.

This week Wolseley, the construction company, announced that a further 2,300 jobs would go, mainly from the UK, following cuts of 5,000 staff in its first quarter.

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