The Engineering Employers Federation (EEF) has urged government to act swiftly to help the industry, which it says faces 100,000 job cuts.

The EEF predicts that the industry faces its worst trading conditions since the early 1990s when 400,000 jobs were axed.

The predictions come on the back of a survey, carried out by the EEF, showing that output for the past three months fell to -11, from +15 in the third quarter, while orders fell to their lowest level since 2005, with a marked decline in export orders, which dropped to -10 from +18 last quarter.

Bob Hale, partner at Grant Thornton, which carried out the research, told the Guardian: “The quarterly survey indicates that the positive progress made by the sector over the last few years has been destroyed almost overnight by the catastrophic effect of the recent turmoil in financial markets.”

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