The public sector now employs a record 5.8 million people, with 318 new jobs created every day, the equivalent of one every four and a half minutes.

The growing number of taxpayer-funded jobs comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a punitive Budget on Wednesday aimed at funding the public sector, while protecting its workers from the worst of her tax rises.

Former Conservative work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the government’s policies, including those aimed at reaching net zero, will further increase the public sector.

“It’s like a gravy train that doesn’t stop,” he said. “This budget only aims to finance it. Taxpayers will suffer because taxes will increase everywhere.

The number of public sector jobs is now the highest since records began in 1999, according to an analysis by the Taxpayers’ Alliance. The sector accounts for almost 18 per cent of all jobs in the UK.

The growing number of taxpayer-funded jobs comes as Chancellor Rachel Reeves prepares to unveil a tough Budget.

In the past year alone, 116,000 new public sector jobs were created (stock image)

The public sector now employs a record 5.8 million people, with 318 new positions created every day (stock image)

In the past year alone, 116,000 new public sector jobs were created – or 318 per day – while productivity fell by more than 7.7 percent over the past five years.

Elliot Keck, head of campaigns at the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will see this budget for what it really is – a budget of the public sector, by the public sector, for the public sector. .

“As the rest of the country prepares for a devastating barrage of tax hikes, bureaucrats know they’re bringing home the bacon. Rachel Reeves should remind her big-spending colleagues that only the private sector generates the revenue they rely on to fuel their profligacy.

Conservative MP Neil O’Brien, a former health minister, said: “We have added huge numbers of extra staff to the public sector, but productivity has fallen.

“The only time we saw productivity growth in the public sector was during strict spending controls between 2010 and 2019.

“There’s no point in Rachel Reeves borrowing lots of money, raising taxes and throwing it into unreformed public services.”