Recruitment firm Ambition has estimated that over 16,500 accountants and finance staff could face unemployment with the government’s planned £6.2bn public spending cuts.

And in the short term at least, the prospects don’t look promising. The sickly private sector isn’t growing quickly enough to accomodate.

UK managing director at Ambition, Tim Gilbert, told City AM: “The government has had to make cuts to start controlling the deficit but there’s a real danger that many of the professionals forced out of the public sector will have nowhere to go to.”

The medicine may be necessary but it really won’t taste nice.