More than 70,000 public sector jobs in Scotland are under threat from the UK Government's budget cuts over the next five years, the TUC has warned.

The trades union federation said 2.8% of the Scottish workforce could be out of a job by 2017, making it one of the hardest hit parts of the UK.

Only Northern Ireland, Wales and the north-east of England stand to lose a greater proportion of their public sector employees on the TUC's analysis.

However, the figures do not take into account policies by the devolved administrations which may offset the effects of the Westminster administration's austerity measures.

TUC general secretary Brendan Barber called for the Government to scale back the cuts and devote more of its efforts towards solving the jobs crisis.

He said: "For the 2.6 million people currently without work, their prospects of finding a job look ever harder, and with thousands of jobs set to go across our public services while private sector job creation stagnates, the picture is set to get much, much worse.

"Apart from the huge effect that the job cuts will have upon the provision of public services across the UK, mass redundancies across the public sector are bad news for our struggling economy, and will have a devastating impact upon local high streets, as newly-unemployed public sector workers simply stop spending.

"The Government needs to devote much more time and energy towards solving our growing jobs crisis. Instead it's making the problem worse, cutting jobs in the public sector and failing to secure growth to protect private sector employees."

Labour finance spokesman Ken Macintosh said: "This is a frightening number of jobs to lose, the consequences of which do not bear thinking about.

"Given the SNP Government's record on the public sector - shedding thousands of teachers, nurses and other key workers - my worry is that the SNP will simply pass on these cuts. That cannot be allowed to happen."