General workers union GMB estimates at least 8,473 Carillion construction staff will have their wages stopped today unless their jobs are rescued by other firms.

Cabinet Office Minister, David Lidington has confirmed the Government would continue to pay those among Carillion’s 11,000 staff in the UK who work in public services jobs, such as NHS cleaners and school catering workers.

But thousands of staff working inside Carillion’s private sector companies will have their wages stopped today unless their jobs are rescued by other firms.

It has also emerged that £5bn turnover Carillion was down to just £29m of cash when it finally collapsed.

According to documents prepared by interim chief executive Keith Cochrane as part of the insolvency process the firm would have run out of cash by the end of today.

The dire state of Carillion’s affairs explains why liquidators were immediately called in. Insolvency experts refused to put it into administration because there was not enough cash in the business to keep it ticking.

The revelations underline that there is no hope for Carillon’s 30,000 trade creditors seeing any of the cash they are owed.

Many are understood to have failed to secure trade insurance because it became so difficult to obtain after the first profit warnings.

It has also been reported that Carillion’s total exposure to 13 banks had risen to £2bn, including around £350m of supply chain finance.