It said that the additional job cuts in the civil service, local government, education and the NHS – announced in November's autumn statement – will have a devastating impact on regional labour markets.

Using official statistics the TUC has analysed the most recent regional unemployment figures and local public sector employment numbers to look at which parts of the UK will be hit hardest by the 710,000 jobs set to go across the public sector.

The TUC says it is not possible to say exactly where public sector jobs will go between now and 2017. But assuming that the job losses take place in proportion to current levels of public sector employment, it has calculated that Northern Ireland and the North East are among the areas that will be hardest hit.

Before last year's autumn statement the Office for Budget Responsibility had expected to see 400,000 jobs go across the public sector. But in November it revised its forecast to predict an extra 310,000 public sector jobs would disappear by the end of 2017.

So for example, in the North East, current unemployment stands at 11.7% and the TUC predicts it will suffer an extra 2.9% cut in employment, as a consequence of losing 32,668 public sector jobs.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: "Tomorrow's unemployment figures are unlikely to bring good news. For the 2.6 million people currently without work, their prospects of finding a job look ever harder, and with thousands of jobs set to go across our public services while private sector job creation stagnates, the picture is set to get much, much worse."

The full story, with a regional table, is on the TUC website.