That is the gloomy prediction from accountants at the Ernst & Young Scottish ITEM Club who fear the country’s reliance on public spending will see it underperform the rest of the UK over the coming years.

More than 100 jobs were lost last week when civil engineer HQC ceased trading and was put in the hands of receiver KPMG.

That could be the start of employment carnage in construction with the Ernst & Young team predicting 10,000 job losses as general unemployment peaks at 225,000 later this year.

Dougie Adams, senior economic advisor to the Ernst & Young Scottish ITEM Club said: “There is real pain to come in the form of public sector spending cuts.

“While the extent of any budgetary cuts remains unclear, recent forecasts suggest that Scotland won’t see a return to 2009 levels of public sector spending before 2020, such is the scale of the retrenchment. This will inevitably have a knock on impact on jobs.”