The fortnight-long mayhem unleashed by job axing in the UK reveals  how deep the recession has hit the country and no matter what economic strategies are conjured by the British government, the job gloom has put a question mark on the £500-million job rescue plan announced by Prime Minister Gordon Brown this week. (See:UK unveils £500 million job rescue plan amid losses)

As numbers keep adding on to the unemployment figures, the government's refusal to bail out critical industries, except bailing out British banks who have refused to lend, more jobs are being axed in Britain than previously thought.

Car maker, Jaguar Land Rover, which has been pleading with the UK government not for a bailout money but credit to tide over the present financial crisis, was forced to wield the axe on 450 staff, including 300 managers, freeze salary hikes till October, and delay paying bonuses. With banks reluctant to finance either businr\esses or consumers, auto sales have nose-dived.

Since the beginning of the slump in car sales, Jaguar Land Rover has cut 2,100 jobs, while last week, Japanese car maker, Nissan cut 1,200 jobs in Sunderland, which is nearly a quarter of its workforce in the UK.

Barclays, which managed to successfully avoid taking governments bailout money and secured £7.3-billion from Middle Eastern governments, (See: Barclays shuns UK bailout loan in favour of Middle East money) had cut 2,130 jobs in its investment banking and investment management divisions on Monday, ysterday announced that it was shedding a further 2,100 at its retail, commercial banking and credit card units .

Last week the bank had laid off more than 400 staff from its IT offices in Cheshire, Northampton and London.

Barclays is expected to write off another £21 billion of its toxic assets said in a statement yesterday, ''We will take all possible measures to mitigate compulsory redundancies through redeployment, using natural attrition, releasing of contractors, closing vacancies and opening voluntary redundancy registers.

Speculation is rife that investment banker, Merrill Lynch may cut nearly 1,900 staff in London, which is a third of its 4,500 London workforce although it has been axing jobs in a few departments for some time.

Last month, Bank of America had announced that it will slash 30,000 to 35,000 staff worldwide over the next three years as the global economy was "affecting the level of business activity" at the bank. (See: Bank of America to slash up to 35,000 jobs over next three years)

Viagra maker Pfizer said yesterday that out of its 3,000-3,500 employees working at its European research and development, it will axe 800 jobs out of which, 240 will come from UK.

Thousands more jobs may go at Kent-based furniture retailer Land Of Leather, as they found it impossible to get credit and Deloitte, the administrators called in after the company filed for bankruptcy said that the furniture retailer has 109 stores around the country, including 13 in London and employs 940 people.

Grattan, the home-shopping giant, which employs 3,800 people, is considering a shake-up and many of its employees are at risk losing their jobs as the company restructures itself to become profitable again and it has intimated its entire staff that their jobs are at risk.

Zavvi, the DVD and games retailer, who went into administration after Woolworths collapsed, had to close another 18 stores where 350 jobs were lost bringing the total job loss at Zavvi to 731 since it filed for bankruptcy protection last month.

Yesterday, Honeywell the global technology and manufacturing business company announced cutting 80 jobs at its Newhouse plant in Motherwell, near Glasgow.

The building supplier, SIG wielded the axe on 720 jobs in the UK and 280 in Europe, while vehicle AP Driveline, the clutch manufacturer called in the administrators putting 237 jobs on the line.

Bernard Matthews, the turkey producer, announced plans to cut 130 jobs and Home Retail Group, which owns Argos and Homebase, said it would cut 210 staff at Manchester.

The maker of the Aga cooker said that to cut cost, it had reduced the number of working hours at its factory and has laid off 400 staff.

In the economic downturn, pub goers will have little to cheer about as UK's biggest pub company, Punch Taverns announced cutting 100 staff from its head office and Daniel Thwaites, the Blackburn-based brewer, has started restructuring, which could affect the jobs of 55 pub managers and 31 head office employees.

At last count, Britain had 2.8 million people unemployed and some economists feel that the unemployment figure could touch the 3 million mark by the end of this year.